Famous Ankles

From what I understand, this Temple is the premier Reform Jewish house of worship in NYC.  The building itself certainly is impressive.

It is just massive and impressive.  It does have a Wikipedia article that goes through the history of the Congregation:  it started in the Lower East Side and bounced around that area for decades until the 1920s when it moved to the Upper West East Side (it’s on Fifth Avenue and 65th Street, where I’ve recently found a bunch of interesting spots). [Corrected.  I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote the location.]

There’s a plaque that does provide some of the details of the building and its worshippers.  It states that the building is made of limestone and was built in 1929.  The designers based the building on a “Moorish-Romanesque” style to capture both the eastern and western cultures.  It notes that there are mosaics by Hildrevh Meiere in the sanctuary.

As always, I love a good doorway.

Wikipedia provided other items that I wasn’t aware of.  The site was where John Jacob Astor’s old mansion used to be.  In NYC, that’s class.  It also has seating for more people than St. Patricks Cathedral.  That’s big anywhere.

Here’s another shot of the Temple that indicates where those 2,500 congregants can fit.  This is from the 65th Street side.

-H

This entry was posted on February 16, 2008 at 2:06 pm and is filed under Manhattan, Upper East Side, Wanderings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.