A story of change...

A three-alarm fire ripped through an empty, landmarked synagogue on the Lower East Side Sunday night, according to the FDNY. Nearly 140 firefighters battled to bring the blaze under control for about five hours, from p.m. to shortly after midnight.

The congregation's building, a Gothic Revival structure built in 1850 as the Norfolk Street Baptist Church.Even as the building was under construction, the ethnic makeup of the church's neighborhood was rapidly changing; native-born Baptists were displaced by Irish and German immigrants. As members moved uptown, the congregation decided to follow and sold their building in 1860 to Alanson T. Biggs, a successful local merchant. The departing Baptist congregation founded the Fifth Avenue Baptist church, then founded the Park Avenue Church, and finally built the Riverside Church.

By Paul Berger (http://pdberger.com/)

Biggs converted the church to one for Methodists, and in 1862, transferred ownership to the Alanson Methodist Episcopal Church. The Methodist congregation was successful for a time, with membership peaking at 572 members in 1873.

In 1885 Beth Hamedrash Hagodol purchased the building for $45,000 (today $1.2 million), and made alterations and repairs at a cost of $10,000 (today $270,000).

The synagogue was closed in 2007. The congregation, reduced to around 20 regularly attending members, was sharing facilities with a congregation on Henry Street.

The inferno that tore through a Lower East Side synagogue Sunday night was most likely intentionally set, according to the NYPD’s Chief of Detectives.

Chief Robert Boyce told reporters at a press conference Tuesday, “We do think it’s arson. We were able to recover the video. We’re looking at it now.”

It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. - Frederick Douglass