Image by Stribling

By Lilly Maier September 12, 2016

Ever dream about living in a synagogue? Well, you can get pretty close now that a historic lower East Side tenament synagogue has converted its top floors into luxury aeries.

All you need is about $4 million to make it happen.

Developer East River Partners just finished several luxury apartments housed on the upper floors of the Adas Yisroel Anshe Meseritz synagogue in the now uber-hip New York City neighborhood. The three condos – including a two-floor 2,500 square feet penthouse – are listed between $2.95 and §4.4 million.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The Meseritz Synagogue is the Lower East Side’s last neoclassical “tenement synagogue” and its limestone façade features delicate ornaments and colorful stained glass. The Orthodox shul was originally built in 1910 by Eastern European Jews.

Back in 2008, the historic synagogue was on the verge of being torn down after its board approved a deal with Kushner Companies, the real-estate firm of Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s husband. The New York Times reportedat the time that the plan called for Kushner to “build a new six-story building on the site, with a synagogue on the first two floors and 10 apartments on the top four stories.”

Kushner Companies eventually pulled out of the deal, after a major community protest. Under the new deal with East River Partners, the original synagogue space was preserved on the lower and basement floor, and the developer agreed to renovate it, according to dnainfo.com.

“It’s been a privilege to be able to work with the synagogue and to do something special for a historical site,” Joseph Cohen, one of the founders of the development firm, told the New York Times in 2015.

East River Partners also kept original elements in the residential parts of the building – including the stained glass and original copper double-entry doors. The building itself is within a historic district in the East Village.

Reach Lilly Maier at maier@forward.com or on Twitter at @lillymmaier.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount