Former Synagogue Will Serve Children's Health By HEATHER HADDON
"This is powerful symbolism of where we are going and where our priorities are," said Bronx Borough President Aldolfo Carrion, who was joined by private funders Alfred and Gail Engelberg, Montefiore president Spencer Foreman, MD and community residents. "This is creating hope and opportunities for children to have better health care and wellness." Carrion's office is providing funding for the renovation project through the New York City Economic Development Corp. Foreman took the opportunity to laud the work of MPC for its work rehabilitating distressed properties in the area, including the organization's headquarters in the Keeper's House, just a couple of doors down from the former synagogue. "What began as an apartment building rehabilitation project has become an astonishing community development arm," Foreman said of MPC, which was founded by Montefiore in 1981. Montefiore's School-Based Health Program operates 11 clinics in area schools. The initiative brings full-time medical, dental and mental health services to over 10 10,000 kids annually. And each year, the Child Protection Center provides a safe space and services for over 1,000 victims of child abuse.
Rabbi Balfour Brickner, executive director of the Engelberg Foundation, said the new community-focused use for the building is a tribute to its history as a synagogue. "To turn it into what you're turning it into is to fulfill its role as a House of Assembly," he said.
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The beginning of
renovations to the last blighted property on Reservoir Oval in Norwood was
marked with a groundbreaking ceremony last Wednesday. The project, at the
site of the former Gun Hill Jewish Center near the corner of Reservoir
Place, will become the headquarters for Montefiore Medical Center's School
Health Program and provide space for the prevention programs of the
hospital's Child Protection Center, which is based on Steuben Avenue. The
renovation is being overseen by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a
not-for-profit support corporation of the Medical Center and the publisher
of the Norwood News.
Leo Schechter, a congregant at Young Israel of Mosholu Parkway,
worshiped at the Gun Hill Jewish Center in its waning days around 1992
when the congregation needed a tenth man to form a minion. "You could find
me here every Saturday," said Schechter, who attended the groundbreaking
with his wife, Dorothy. MPC president Dart Westphal presented Schechter
with a frame of the remaining nameplates of donors to the synagogue.