From the September 2011 Civic News article, “Ten Years Ago in the Slope (…and 20 and 30, Too), September 2011.” Return to main article.
Beth Elohim: 120 Years in Brooklyn
Congregation Beth Elohim, located on Garfield Place and Eighth Avenue in Park Slope, has begun its year-long celebration to commemorate 120 years of service to the reform Jewish community of Brooklyn.
Members, in their search through the memorabilia in the archives, have found numerous interesting photographs and articles that chronicle their predecessors’ activities.
1861
Minutes, hand-written in German, list the names of the original forty-one immigrants who gave life to Beth Elohim, now the oldest reform Jewish congregation in the borough to have survived under its original name. From its beginnings in 1861 the congregation grew in downtown Brooklyn, first on Pearl Street and later on State Street in churches renovated to conform with the Hebrew ritual. By the end of the nineteenth century, English replaced German in most services and sermons. The children growing up within the congregation were American Jews, born on American soil.
1902
The modern Beth Elohim developed during the tenure of Dr. Alexander Lyons, who served for thirty-seven years beginning in 1902. During this period the congregation grew both in size and in scope. Dr. Lyons felt that the synagogue should play an important role in the recreational and cultural life of its members. He also encouraged the women of the congregation to participate more than ever before. Under his guidance the Women’s Auxiliary was organized to spearhead many service and charitable activities. The Temple and Temple House were built in 1909 and 1929 respectively, to accommodate the increasing size of the congregation and its varied activities.
The Temple building contains the main sanctuary where the major religious services are held. Its familiar star-topped dome, reminiscent of some nineteenth-century European synagogues, is visible from quite a distance around Brooklyn. The Temple House, across Garfield Place, contains a chapel, numerous rooms for educational and social activities, a library, a pool, and a gym. A life-size stone carving of Moses and the Ten Commandments is perched atop the northwest corner of the building overlooking Eighth Avenue.
1932
Isaac Landman joined Rabbi Lyons and proved to be a distinguished scholar and educator. He established the first Adult Academy, which has continued to the present.
The current Rabbi Emeritus, Eugene J. Sack, became the rabbi in 1946 after he had been a chaplain in World War II. His thirty-five-year tenure marks more than one quarter of the congregation’s history. He has initiated many programs involving youth and parents. Junior and senior youth groups and a parents’ club were started by Rabbi Sack. In the community, he is best known for his work with the Brooklyn Philharmonia; he was one of its original organizers. Besides these, he has played an important role in other national and international organizations such as the Red Cross and UNICEF.
1981
Rabbi Gerald I. Weider, who came to Park Slope in 1978, has been active in the congregation and in the community. Within the congregation, he has started such programs as retreats for families and religious school students, services in Prospect Park, and Shabbat-sharing programs for families. He is involved in Park Slope as president of its Clergy Association.
At present, many of the congregation’s activities are open to the public. Children of all faiths are welcome at the nursery school, Tots-on-the-Move, the day camp, and the afterschool center. Adults from the community participate in folkdancing and body movement classes. A new cultural arts program will start this year. Volunteers from the congregation participate in the annual Red Cross blood drive and work throughout the year in the Braille Program for the blind. — Charlotte Rubin
Ansonia Warehouse Co-ops Growth in South Slope
Among the new prospects of the South Slope is the 90%-completed co-op development of the former Ansonia Warehouse on Twelfth Street at Seventh Avenue. Built in 1909 across from the Ansonia Clock Factory, it was used to store clocks. In 1923 it was altered to provide a ground-floor enclosure for cars, and around that time it became the Dooley Storage Warehouse. In recent years it had been rented by the City of New York for storing voting machines.
Two years ago the warehouse was sold by Kazeroid and Arberman Realty, Inc., to Ralph Miller and Sherwood Wichtendal of Millwich Enterprises.
Architects for the development are Bernard Rothzeid, Carl Kaiserman, and Peter Thomson, all Park Slope residents.
The building, five stories plus basement, has 36 one- and two-bedroom apartments, eight of them duplexes, all of them multi-level units. The renovated warehouse offers such attractions as a landscaped courtyard on Twelfth Street, roof garden and barbecue pits. Because of the load-bearing strength of the structure, the roof-garden will be paved with concrete blocks and can actually lend itself to gardening, dancing, and other outdoor activities.
Many of the kitchens have quarry-tile floors; some of the duplexes have spiral staircases. Interiors include exposed brick and terra cotta-faced columns which Kazeroid refers to as “warehouse detail.” And when it comes to mechanicals, everything is new, from the trash chutes on each floor to a new boiler in the cellar.
Kazeroid emphasizes that the quality of the work is well above average. By the definition of the building department the structure is fireproof; it also has smoke detectors, sprinklers, intercoms, and new thermopane windows.
The loading bays at the front of the building are being removed and replaced with glass block below eye level for privacy and with windows above for visibility. The exterior brick has been cleaned.
These are “legal apartments with the loft look,” Kazeroid points out; unlike lofts, they are delivered with a permanent residential certificate of occupancy. Financing (co-op loans) is available. All this, and (in some apartments and from the roof garden) a view of the harbor!
The Ansonia Factory itself is being developed as co-ops (the Clockwork Development venture) by Ken Patton, Jerome Kerner, and William Lubliner. For several years, the main factory building had operated as lofts before the owners, Paul Weiss and Lazar Muller, sold it, retaining a limited partnership. It will include 78 apartments.
Once the largest clock factory in the world, the Ansonia complex includes about 250,000 square feet in three large buildings and several smaller ones.
Park Slope residents have hoped for several years that such developments will improve the commercial quality of Seventh and Eighth Avenues south of Ninth Street. Since the co-oping of the Atlas Garage on Twelfth Street, both commercial and residential prospects of the area have improved. Designed by Rothzeid, Kaiserman and Thomson, the Atlas building won a First Honor Award for design from Housing Magazine and AlA; it is fully occupied and some units have been resold successfully. New shops have opened on both avenues, and sales and resales of unoccupied buildings have occurred, in the area surrounding these co-op buildings.
Toxic Waste as Local Issue
Methods of disposal and transportation of toxic waste .,nd radioactive materials have become a controversial issue between the federal government and local groups throughout the nation.
Within the metropolitan area, says George Lovgen, chairman of the Civic Council public safety committee, those materials are supposed to be transported via waterway. But the US Department of Transportation will use only interstate highways unless local, state and federal authorities agree on alternate routes.
On February 1, 1981, the federal government will make final route decisions wherever·a conflict arises. Therefore Lovgren urgently endorses use of waterways as the safest mode of transport.
Proposed routes in the metropolitan area are these: Long Island Expressway; Brooklyn-Queens Expressway; Gowanus Expressway; George Washington Bridge; Verrazzano Bridge.
Lovgren pointed out recent warnings to hunters of wild fowl against consumption of those which had eaten food or drunk water containing toxic waste matter. Among the ill effects of such contact for humans are serious birth defects, Lovgren said.
“I would like to apprise our readers,” Lovgren continued, “that at the time of the toxic-waste explosion in Elizabeth, New Jersey, fumes came over Staten Island and New York fire and police departments were put on evacuation alert. Due to low wind velocity, evacuation of Staten Island was not necessary, although residents did suffer minor discomforts. Most alarming is the fact that our emergency services, short of personnel, would encounter severe difficulties in an evacuation.”
Camp Friendship Will Renovate Site ,
Two hundred friends, members and parents of Camp Friendship Youth programs joined on May 16 to start a fundraising campaign for the renovation of a site at 339 Eighth Street.
Recently neglected, the building was once a meeting place for a thousand kids for sports, study, and social activity. In the ’50s, known as the Lowe Center and operated by the PAL, it was one of the most important recreational facilities in South Brooklyn.
Now it will become a seven-day, 14-hour-a-day facility for the after-school center, athletic leagues, and evening teen programs of Camp Friendship. It will also provide space for other local groups, Director John Duda said.