"A Brooklyn hospital group is pushing to demolish a nearly 100-year-old synagogue as part of an affordable housing project - sparking calls from the local Jewish community for New Yorkers to help save the piece of history. The Kingsbrook Shul in East Flatbush - which was built in 1927 in response to a rise in antisemitism - launched a bid to stop the house of worship from getting demolished to make way for the 266-unit mega-project."
""The way they see it is there's a sort of conflict, you know, a choice between affordable housing and the preservation of the shul," attorney for the synagogue, Stuart Blader, told The Post Friday. "That is false." The $400 million state-funded conversion project was announced in 2023. Initial renderings called for the synagogue to be torn down - but alternative renderings and written agreements from the state called for the historic building to remain untouched in the construction process, Blader said."
One Brooklyn Health seeks to convert the Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center campus into a $400 million, state-funded, 266-unit affordable housing complex. Initial plans called for demolition of the nearly century-old Kingsbrook Shul, built in 1927, though some renderings and state agreements indicated the historic building should remain untouched. The synagogue closed in 2020 during the COVID pandemic, and local Orthodox worshippers have filed suit to prevent demolition. Synagogue counsel argues preservation and housing are not mutually exclusive, while the hospital's attorney called the unused building a "zombie structure" and urged court support for the conversion.
Read at New York Post
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