Rivington Street - Eldridge Street

Percy Loomis Sperr, 1890–1964

“Manhattan: Rivington Street – Eldridge Street”

New York, 1930

Percy Loomis Sperr not only documented the addresses of the buildings on the streets that he captured in his photographs, but he also considered it essential to describe the local landmarks.

This photograph offers a snapshot of Rivington Street on July 23, 1930. Sperr’s typewritten note states: “56 to 64 Rivington Street, north side, east from but not including Eldridge, to but not including Allen streets, showing the Warshauer First Congregation Synagogue (No. 58-60).” He goes on to indicate: “The Congregation was organized in 1889 and conducts services in Hebrew.”

The synagogue is featured on the left side of the photograph in the context of daily bustling life on the street. It captures pushcarts lined up right across from the building, vendors and their customers, pedestrians, and cars parked on the pavement. Adjacent establishments, such as a law office and Friedel’s restaurant, are also in the frame.

The synagogue building was constructed in the Moorish Revival style by the renowned architect Emery Roth (1871–1948), a Hungarian Jewish  immigrant who designed many Beaux Arts buildings in the city. It was originally built for the congregation Adath Jeshurun of Jassy, serving immigrants from Iași, Romania. But in 1907 the building changed hands and was sold to the First Warshauer (Warsaw) Congregation, which remained on the premises until 1973. Sperr’s photograph of 1930 may be the earliest surviving photographic documentation of this historic synagogue. The Library has other images of the same synagogue that the Polish-American photographer Morris Huberland (1909–2003) captured in the 1970s, apparently after the congregation’s departure.