Brotherhood Synagogue (New York City, New York)

 synagogue, interesting place

28 Gramercy Park South
New York, NY 10003.

www.brotherhoodsynagogue.org/

2-story Anglo-Italianate synagogue completed in 1859. Designed by King & Kellum, it was originally built as the Friends Meeting House for a Quaker religious group known as the Religious Society of Friends. The building is clad in warm, yellow Ohio sandstone. It is symmetrical, with paneled, white wooded double-doors framed by pilasters and topped by a rounded pediment. There are three tall segmental-arched windows at the 2nd floor, and the meeting house rises to a dramatic peaked pediment, the end returns of which defined the slightly-projecting end bays. There are six bays of similar tall windows along the east and west facades on the 2nd floor, and shorter windows at the ground floor.

The Quaker congregation moved out in 1959, and in 1965 the building was sold to a developer while it was being used by the Ninth Church of Christ, Scientist. Following public outcry at the impending loss of the meeting house, it was purchased from the developer by a foundation hoping to convert it to a performing arts center, and then by the United Federation of Teachers, which intended to use if for offices and meeting space, but neither use come to fruition.

Finally, in 1975 it was purchased by the Brotherhood Synagogue, formerly located on West 13th Street, a progressive congregation in the Conservative Jewish tradition. The Synagogue brought in architect James Polshek to renovate and restore it.

s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/1559.pdf
www.villagepreservation.org/2020/11/06/beyond-the-villa...