BREAKING: fire at historic synagogue in LES Manhattan is being investigated as a suspicious fire

[bathroommonkey76]

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[Behind the Aegis]

1. Is it starting?

Time will tell.

[bathroommonkey76]

3. I think so

Idaho officials say $11,000 in donations were raised after the Anne Frank memorial in Boise was vandalized last week. Officials found racist and anti-Semitic slurs on the memorial and a sign. Boise police are treating it as potential hate crimes. (May 15)

[Princess Turandot]

2. Beth Hamedrash Hagodol. Wow. From the NYT photo, it's pretty much gone, except for the walls...

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NY Times

This place had really fallen on hard times and was no longer in use. (You can see here in Street View: https://goo.gl/maps/bYYc5xFeWHu) It's a designated NYC Landmark: it was built in 1850 as a Baptist church, sold to a Methodist congregation in 1860, then transformed into an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in 1885. (Religious building recycling is quite common here.) It's described in some places as the oldest Orthodox congregation of Russian Jews in the US.

The interior in 2005:

Paul Berger via Wikimedia

That's a shame: these buildings are part of the fabric of history in NYC, especially on the Lower East Side.

Though I must admit to breathing a sigh of relief when I clicked on your post and saw which synagogue it was. I was afraid that it might be the beautifully rescued and restored Eldridge Street Synagogue, historic preservation at its best.

From the Wikipedia article on its recent woes:

The synagogue was closed in 2007. The congregation, reduced to around 20 regularly attending members, was sharing facilities with a congregation on Henry Street.[18] The Lower East Side Conservancy was trying to raise an estimated $4.5 million for repairs of the building, with the intent of converting it to an educational center.[2][17] In December the leadership of the synagogue under Rabbi Mendel Greenbaum filed a “hardship application” with the Landmarks Preservation Commission seeking permission to demolish the building to make way for a new residential development.[19] This application was withdrawn in March 2013, but the group Friends of the Lower East Side described Beth Hamedrash Hagodol's status as "demolition by neglect".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beth_Hamedrash_Hagodol