PUBLISHED BY MOSHOLU PRESERVATION CORPORATION

Former Temple Now Houses Day-Care Center

By HEATHER HADDON

It may no longer be a house of Jewish prayer, but there were many expressions of thanks and appreciation during the ribbon cutting ceremony of a new child education center and medical facility in Norwood last week. Elected officials and other community leaders gathered at the old Nathan Straus Jewish Center last month for its reopening as an auxiliary site for the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center (MMCC) and Montefiore Medical Center.

“It’s really a blessing,” said Spencer Foreman, MD, Montefiore’s president, who helped spearhead the redevelopment. Invoking the Hebrew word for a good deed — mitzvah — Foreman celebrated the DeKalb Avenue facility’s reincarnation: “This contributes to the life and vitality of the Norwood neighborhood.”

Montefiore bought the Nathan Straus building in the late 1990s after the Jewish population in the neighborhood waned considerably. MMCC, a veteran service provider located just down the street, was desperate for more space to accommodate its overflowing programs.

“We’ve always had large waiting lists,” said Reva Gershen-Lowy, an MMCC director overseeing early childhood programming. “We had no problem filling the new program.”

Montefiore agreed to split the building between space for its internal medicine department and MMCC. The Mosholu Preservation Corporation (MPC), which publishes the Norwood News and is a community development organization supported by Montefiore, began working with the two organizations in 2003 on the project.

The $2.5 million renovation of the site, which involved an extensive redesign, started earlier this year. Classrooms were carved out of the old social hall and first-floor sanctuary, the Hebrew school was reconfigured into the medical facility, and a playground was built in the back. The Hebrew writing, the Ten Commandments, and “Nathan Straus Jewish Center” carved into the stone exterior are the few indications that the site once housed a synagogue.

Council Member Oliver Koppell, who attended the event along with Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, has represented the area including the synagogue (first as an assemblyman) for decades. “It had a very active congregation,” he said.

Koppell’s office helped cut through red tape at the Buildings Department to allow the child-care facility to open on time in September.

The space is warm and welcoming, with 51 Head Start and 45 day-care participants arriving on weekdays. The six upstairs classrooms are spacious and filled with art supplies, little kitchens and reading nooks. Staff are particularly excited by how kid-friendly the rooms are.

“Everything is child-sized, even the potties,” said Ilana Angeliades, the site director, as she showed off a tiny toilet.

Arianna Luis, 4, likes having all the activity options. “We get to sleep and we get to play,” she said shyly.

The Center’s New Beginnings program, which works with teens who have dropped out of high school, is housed in the basement. Funded by the city Department of Education, the two-year-old initiative serves 45 teens at the site. “It’s for youngsters who go to school, but don’t get in the door of the classroom,” said Don Bluestone, MMCC’s executive director.

The Nathan Straus project is MPC’s latest success in converting vacated buildings into community facilities. The group converted another former synagogue — the Gun Hill Jewish Center — on Reservoir Oval into offices for Montefiore’s School Health and Child Protection Center programs two years ago. “We are one of the nation’s largest owners and operators of synagogues,” Foreman joked.

Before stepping out to cut the ceremonial ribbon, officials commended MPC and Montefiore’s efforts in neighborhood preservation. “You look around Norwood, and you see so many examples of this work,” Dinowitz said. “It makes me proud to represent this area.”
 

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