(Jewish Group) A 20-year-old...student...mapping every Manhattan address that used to be a synagogue

[Behind the Aegis]

A 20-year-old college student in Texas is mapping every Manhattan address that used to be a synagogue

Writer Luc Sante calls them the “ghosts of Manhattan.” Those are the souls of the poor and marginal people, now dead, whose presence can be felt like a shade in the history of now affluent neighborhoods, “where they push invisibly behind it to erect their memorials in the collective unconscious.”

Sante’s poltergeists came to mind after I stumbled on a strange little Twitter account called “This Used to Be a Synagogue” (@OldShulSpots). Once a day or so the account delivers a photograph of some nondescript street view in Manhattan, with a tweet stating the address and name of the congregation that used to sit on the site.

That nail salon at 90 Clinton St.? That used to be Linath Hazedeck Anshei Sadlikoff. The deli at E. 104th St.? Something called Mac’zikei Torath Kodesh.

I felt if I stared at the photos long enough the color would fade and I’d see spectral images of Jewish ancestors entering these long-gone places after dodging horse-drawn carts and boxy automobiles with high fenders and wide running boards.

Even the teeth-cracking names in the old Ashkenazi spellings hinted at something both ancient and familiar, like a cave drawing or the empty mezuzah cases you see in medieval ghettoes.

more...

Very neat!!

[marble falls]

1. Breath taking. What we have hiding in plain sight. I'm glad she can figure these histories out ...

... before they totally disappear.


Is there a database of photos of those places she found?