Central Synagogue
652 Lexington Avenue | East Midtown | built 1872
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1870
Hundreds gather at Lexington and 55th Street to lay the cornerstone of Ahawath Chesed's new temple
On December 14, 1870, five to six hundred people gathered around the excavation at Lexington Avenue and 55th Street for the first of the congregation's founding ceremonies. A bugle opened the program at 10:30 a.m., with a choir and large orchestra on the platform. Rabbi Adolph Huebsch and president Ignatz Stein took part, and the guest orator was Cincinnati's Isaac Mayer Wise. The Times noted that many Christians attended alongside Jews.
Source: centralsynagogue.org
- 1872
Henry Fernbach's Moorish Revival synagogue is consecrated on Lexington Avenue
The cornerstone was laid on December 14, 1870, and the building was consecrated on April 19, 1872. Henry Fernbach designed it in a Moorish Revival style with two 112-foot towers topped by onion domes. Its congregation grew from the 1898 merger of Shaar Hashomayim and Ahawath Chesed and took the name Central Synagogue around 1918. It is Midtown's only remaining 19th-century synagogue.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1886
Fire damages the synagogue's stained glass and plasterwork
A fire broke out in the Lexington Avenue synagogue on February 28, 1886. No one died, but firefighters had to wreck most of the stained glass and part of the plaster decoration to get at the flames. Newspapers put the damage at $5,000 to $7,000, and the building was renovated afterward. Rabbi Alexander Kohut, a Hungarian-born orator who had succeeded Adolph Huebsch the year before, led the congregation at the time.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1918
The congregation adopts the name Central Synagogue
Congregation Ahawath Chesed, which built the 1872 Lexington Avenue building, had merged with Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in 1898. Two decades later the combined congregation begins calling itself Central Synagogue, the name the building carries today.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1923
Central merges with Stephen Wise's Free Synagogue, but the union lasts only two years
In May 1923 the congregation merged with the Free Synagogue to form the Central and Free Synagogues under Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, who led services at Carnegie Hall, the Lexington Avenue sanctuary and a parish house on West 68th Street. The partners never found a site for a shared new building, and their customs clashed: Central sold pews, while the Free Synagogue used open seating. In February 1925 Wise announced that the two would split that May.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1936
Central Synagogue hosts the opening of New York's Horace Mann centennial
On December 13, 1936, 800 people attended the opening of New York City's Horace Mann centennial at Central Synagogue, part of the program for the congregation's 90th anniversary. Frank Kingdon, who was a Methodist minister and headed the University of Newark, and William H. Kilpatrick, a Teachers College education professor, spoke on the place of education in democracy. The synagogue's anniversary committee had agreed to host the opening for educators and teachers.
Source: centralsynagogue.org
- 1949
Ely Jacques Kahn's makeover paints over the Victorian stencils and swaps the Moorish chandeliers
In 1949 the congregation hired Ely Jacques Kahn, a designer of skyscrapers, to refurbish the aging building. His plan was a makeover rather than a restoration: the Victorian stencilwork was painted over, the Moorish chandeliers gave way to Art Deco fixtures, and the crenellation along the roofline was removed. Hugh Hardy later told The New Yorker that Kahn had been embarrassed by the decoration and simplified it.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1966
The city designates Central Synagogue a landmark, calling it the finest Moorish Revival building in New York
The Landmarks Preservation Commission held its hearing on Central Synagogue on May 10, 1966, with three witnesses in favor and none opposed, and designated the building that year. Its report describes the synagogue as the state's longest continuously used Jewish house of worship and the city's finest surviving Moorish Revival structure, a Gothic-style plan dressed in Moorish detail, with two octagonal towers topped by domes.
- 1970
Members re-lay the cornerstone found beneath the main steps for the synagogue's centennial
Ahead of the Lexington Avenue building's hundredth anniversary, the congregation hired a firm to locate its cornerstone, which was discovered beneath the main steps. Members re-laid the stone on December 13, 1970, as part of the centennial celebration. That year Central also helped organize a New-York Historical Society exhibit about the city's Jewish history.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1998
A fire guts Central Synagogue's sanctuary
On August 28, 1998, a fire started during construction work badly damaged the synagogue's interior. The congregation spent nearly $40 million restoring the building to its original appearance rather than modernizing it, and the work was completed in September 2001.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2001
Central Synagogue is rededicated after its 1998 fire
Architect Hugh Hardy of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer oversees a roughly $40 million restoration of the sanctuary after the August 1998 blaze, and the synagogue is rededicated three years later. The building had already been named a National Historic Landmark in 1975.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2014
Angela Buchdahl becomes Central Synagogue's senior rabbi
Angela Buchdahl is installed as senior rabbi, becoming the first woman and the first Asian-American to lead the congregation. The synagogue, which began using the name "Central Synagogue" in 1918, has been in continuous use longer than any other synagogue building in New York City.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2019
Central Synagogue opens its sanctuary to the neighboring Islamic Society after a fire
In March 2019 a fire partly destroyed the Islamic Society of Mid-Manhattan's space next door on East 55th Street, along with a restaurant. Central Synagogue offered its space for the society's Friday prayers, and more than 500 worshippers gathered there. The synagogue said it felt deep sorrow and loss on hearing of the fire, which caused no serious injuries.
Source: abc7ny.com
Further reading
- Central Synagogue (Manhattan)Wikipedia
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