Central Synagogue
— — the dome that came back after the fire.
Not only on a wall.
“The Moorish-Revival synagogue on Lexington at 55th, its blue-and-gold dome rebuilt after the 1998 fire took the sanctuary. Henry Fernbach designed it in 1872, the oldest synagogue building in continuous use in New York. A Reform congregation older than the Brooklyn Bridge. People stop on the sidewalk and look up. — from the studio
Central Synagogue, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Central Synagogue stands at 652 Lexington Avenue at 55th Street in Midtown Manhattan, home to Congregation Ahawath Chesed since 1872. Architect Henry Fernbach designed the Moorish-Revival sanctuary, its twin octagonal towers rising 122 feet over the avenue. The building is the oldest synagogue in continuous use in New York State and a National Historic Landmark. A 1998 fire gutted the interior; the congregation rebuilt and reopened in September 2001. Today roughly 2,800 member families belong to one of the largest Reform congregations in North America.
The interior reads like an Alhambra study book transposed to Midtown. Stencils in 69 colors cover the walls and the great central dome, painted by Wright Frank Mayer in the original scheme and recovered after the 1998 fire from photographs and surviving fragments. The blue dome sits 90 feet above the floor. Hugh Hardy of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer led the restoration, completed in 2001 at a cost of $40 million. The horseshoe arches, the keel-shaped windows, the stenciled cedar: Fernbach's Moorish vocabulary survived because the congregation chose to recover it line for line.
The sanctuary opens for Shabbat services Friday evening and Saturday morning, and the congregation streams services online so anyone can watch from elsewhere. Senior Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, installed in 2014, was the first Asian-American rabbi ordained in North America. Architectural tours run Wednesday afternoons by reservation through the temple office. The building sits one block east of the 51st Street subway on the 6 train and three blocks from the Lexington-53rd Street stop on the E and M lines. Photography inside the sanctuary is welcome outside service hours.