Grant Will Restore Local Synagogue's Past Glory

Even if you are looking for it, it is easy to miss the Old Broadway Synagogue.

The modest building--the last synagogue in Harlem--sits on Old Broadway Avenue, a one block-long vestige of the Colonial-era Bloomingdale Road running from 125th to 126th Street. The few windows that are apparent on the facade of the narrow, two story brick synagogue are boarded up, and much of the building is obscured by scaffolding.

The only immediate sign that this is no ordinary building is the cornerstone, bearing an inscription in Hebrew and the date of construction according to the Jewish calendar.

The anonymity of the synagogue will soon be a thing of the past. With a $100,000 restoration grant from the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, to be administered by the New York Landmarks Conservancy, the Old Broadway Synagogue will soon look much as it did half a century ago and hopes to serve the neighborhood's Orthodox Jewish Community as it once did 80 years ago. Most noticeable will be a set of new stained glass windows modeled on those that originally adorned the building.
The interior of the Old Broadway Synagogue looks like a cross between a place of worship and the sort of tenement that housed many turn-of-the-century Eastern European immigrants--like those who founded the synagogue in 1911. On the second floor, where the details of the tin ceiling have been dulled by numerous coats of paint, a large arc of cracking yellow paint on the wall facing the street betrays the location of the original stained glass windows.

The window was bricked over in the 1960s, when its panes began to fall prey to vandals on both sides of the glass--teenagers would throw rocks at the window from the street, and youths in the congregation would poke the panels out from within. Its restoration is the centerpiece of the project.

"The upstairs window has been the most exciting part of the job, really," said architect Daniel Allen, an associate at Cutsogeorge & Tooman Architects, the firm that has been contracted to design the repairs to the building. Cutsogeorge & Tooman, which specializes in restoration and preservation, is working with stained glass specialists at the Gil Studio in Brooklyn on the windows. The firm will also oversee other aspects of the building's restoration, including a new set of doors and repairs to the walls and roof of the synagogue.

"It's a huge challenge to determine exactly what to do within the limits of the [UMEZ] grant," Allen said. "We've tried to do some things that aren't really all that glamorous but needed to be done."

Some elements of the restoration require the architects to walk a fine line between form and function. For the front door, Cutsogeorge & Tooman must try to remain faithful to the original design while accounting for security needs that were not concerns for the original architects.

"The challenge has been to design a door that will both provide security and look beautiful," Allen says.

The stained glass windows will not only be the most rewarding part of the project, they will also be its biggest challenge. In addition to the large window on the second floor, the lunette over the front door and a pair of smaller rectangular windows are also being restored.

The project has required a great deal of research, and Allen has had to sift through glass fragments, city tax photographs from the 1930s, and the memories of elderly congregation members in the process of figuring out what the windows originally looked like.

"There are some surviving fragments that we will use as clues to replicate some of the windows," Allen says. Parts of the lunette had survived, albeit with little of the original glass.

"Much of it had been replaced, but we could piece together a design from what was left," he said. "Others have been gone for forty or fifty years, so for those we have to use historical documents and photographs."

According to Jill Crawford, the program manager for the New York Landmarks Conservancy's Upper Manhattan Historic Preservation Fund, a major factor in the Fund's decision to allocate the UMEZ's block grant to the synagogue was its listing on both the state and national registries of historic landmarks.

"I imagine that UMEZ would be interested in maintaining the diversity of the neighborhood," Paul Radensky, president of Old Broadway Synagogue, said. "I think we're all richer for it. There is a long Jewish history in Harlem, and we're a big part of it. And I like to think that we are a positive influence in the community, too."

The synagogue is small by Manhattan standards. Most of Morningside Heights' Orthodox Jewish community gravitates toward Congregation Ohab Zedek on 95th Street and Congregation Ramath Orah on 110th Street. Services at the Old Broadway Synagogue tend to draw about 20 people. They are primarily members of the slowly-growing Jewish community in Harlem, as well as a handful of Columbia graduate students.

Radensky feels that the synagogue appeals to "people who are a little more adventurous, who want to go off the beaten path and want a greater degree of participation in the congregation."

The Old Broadway Synagogue's original congregation was primarily made up of Eastern European immigrants living in Harlem, most of whom moved out of the neighborhood in the 1930s and '40s. Beginning in 1950, a new community of Holocaust survivors arrived at the synagogue with Rabbi Jacob Kret, who dedicated 48 years of service to the congregation. In the '70s and '80s the synagogue was popular with the Columbia Orthodox community. Although few Columbia undergraduates regularly attend now, the synagogue maintains some contact to the campus community through occasional services led by Rabbi Charles Scheer of Columbia/Barnard Hillel.

Upstairs in the synagogue, Radensky pores over the blueprints for the window. Arranged around them are fragments of original glass taped to samples of matching new materials from the Gil Studio and a 70 year-old photograph of congregation members gathered in front of the building. The photograph is one of only a handful in which the full window is visible, so it is easy to understand why Radensky is so excited about a grainy glimpse at the original facade.

"This is a beautiful building," he said, "although it obviously needs a lot of work."