Eldridge Street Synagogue

Similar Moorish influences are featured in Chinatown’s Eldridge Street Synagogue, notable for being one of the first American synagogues erected by Eastern European Jews. Its 70-foot-high vaulted ceilings and arches in particular enchanted visitors and the press––at least, before unsafe stairs and rain leaks forced the sanctuary to close to the public 1950. Its reopening in 2007 as both a synagogue and museum (57 years and $20 million later) has made the “gasp-inducing” structure once more part of the community.