CENTRAL SYNAGOGUE is located at Lexington Avenue
and East 55th Street. It was designed by a Prussian Jewish architect, HENRY FERNBACH, and constructed from 1871-1872. Its Moorish
form of design was influenced by the heritage of Jews in Moorish Spain and
modeled after the Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest. The Ahavath Chesed congregation was founded
on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1846 by Jews from Bohemia. This building is the oldest building in New York State
that has been “in continuous use by a single Jewish congregation.” The synagogue underwent a restoration after a
fire in 1999.
