Beth Hamedrash Hagodol
60 Norfolk Street | also 64 Norfolk Street, 62 Norfolk Street | Lower East Side | built 2022
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Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1850
A Gothic Revival church rises on the Norfolk Street lot
The Norfolk Street Baptist Church was built on the site in 1850, its Gothic Revival design featuring ribbed vaulting and pointed arched window openings. A Methodist congregation later took over the building before it went up for sale. The structure would outlast both congregations, becoming one of the Lower East Side's largest synagogues.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1885
Beth Hamedrash Hagodol buys the former Baptist church
Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe purchased the Gothic Revival building for $45,000 and spent another $10,000 converting it into a synagogue. Workers replaced the church's pulpit with an ark for the Torah scrolls and added a central bimah, leaving the exterior unchanged for the time being.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1888
Rabbi Jacob Joseph leads the synagogue as New York's only chief rabbi
Rabbi Jacob Joseph took the pulpit at Beth Hamedrash Hagodol in 1888, holding the unique title of Chief Rabbi of New York City until his death in 1902. His tenure anchored the Norfolk Street synagogue as a center of Orthodox authority for the Lower East Side's growing immigrant community.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1909
A mass meeting at Beth Hamedrash Hagodol protests a conference of Reform rabbis
A mass meeting against the 20th Central Conference of American Rabbis, then meeting in the city, was held at the synagogue in 1909. The call to the meeting described the Reform rabbis' conference as a malicious misrepresentation of Judaism. By 1908 the congregation counted 175 member families and took in about $10,000 a year.
“In 1909, the synagogue was the site of a mass meeting to protest the 20th Central Conference of American Rabbis…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1913
Jacob Schiff speaks at a Beth Hamedrash Hagodol rally to fund the first Young Israel synagogue
In 1913 the synagogue hosted what was billed as a historic mass meeting to raise money for the first Young Israel synagogue. Jacob Schiff was the guest speaker.
“…in 1913 the synagogue was the site of a "historic mass meeting" to raise funds for the first Young Israel synagogue, at which Jacob Schiff was the guest speaker.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1952
Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, a Kovno Ghetto scholar, becomes the synagogue's rabbi and fills the sanctuary
Ephraim Oshry, a Torah scholar and religious leader in the Kovno Ghetto, became rabbi of Beth Hamedrash Hagodol in 1952, a post he held for over 50 years. His Sunday afternoon lectures drew crowds that filled the 1,200-seat sanctuary, with the overflow seated on the stairs. He also founded a yeshiva for gifted high school boys in Monsey, New York.
“…his Sunday afternoon lectures were so popular that the entire 1,200-seat sanctuary was filled, and the overflow had to sit on the stairs.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1967
The Norfolk Street synagogue is designated a New York City landmark
The building at 60 Norfolk Street, which began as the Norfolk Street Baptist Church, was designated a New York City landmark in 1967. Ephemeral New York says it still has the Gothic Revival touches of a mid-19th-century church, including arched windows, four-leaf tracery and a lofty vaulted nave.
Source: Ephemeral New York
- 1997
A summer storm blows out the synagogue's two-story front window
In the summer of 1997 a storm destroyed the large two-story window across the synagogue's front, whose rotten wooden frame could not be saved. The sanctuary stood open to the weather for a month before the congregation, down to about 100 members, asked for help. The New York Landmarks Conservancy gave $2,500 for a temporary metal window, but the congregation lacked the $10,000 needed for the full repair.
“In the summer of 1997, a storm blew out the main two-story window at the front of the building, and the window's wooden frame was rotten, cracked and could not be saved.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2001
A fire damages the synagogue's roof, ceiling, murals and plasterwork
On December 6, 2001, a fire, along with the effort to put it out, did severe damage to the roof, ceiling, painted murals and decorative plaster. It came after the congregation had raised $40,000 in 2000 for emergency repairs and won a $230,000 state grant for restoration work, including roof repair. The congregation had not been able to raise the matching funds the grant required.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2007
Beth Hamedrash Hagodol closes after 122 years on Norfolk Street
Membership at the synagogue, once the spiritual home of thousands of Lower East Side Jews, had dwindled to a handful of elderly congregants. The doors closed in 2007 after 122 years of continuous use, and the landmarked building sat vacant, its windows broken and its entrance overgrown with vegetation.
Source: Ephemeral New York
- 2012
The congregation asks the city for permission to demolish the synagogue and sell the land
In 2012 the congregation asked the Landmarks Preservation Commission to let it demolish the synagogue and sell the land to developers, a request that was on hold by September 2013. Ephemeral New York described a building with blown-out windows, chipped moldings, falling plaster and brush blocking the entrance, years after the congregation closed it in 2007.
Source: Ephemeral New York
- 2017
A three-alarm fire destroys the vacant landmark synagogue
A three-alarm fire tore through the long-shuttered synagogue building, gutting the structure that had stood since 1850. A 14-year-old was later arrested on arson charges. Parts of the ruin were demolished starting in 2018, and by 2022 a housing lottery had opened for a new residential building on the site.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Beth Hamedrash HagodolWikipedia
- Broken remains of a Norfolk Street synagogueEphemeral New York
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