Beth Israel Synagogue
- Year
- 1901
- Style
- Romanesque Revival
- City
- Boston, MA
Beth Israel Synagogue at 238 Columbia Street was the first and principal synagogue serving Cambridge's East Cambridge Jewish community, built for a congregation founded in 1898 as the Sephardic Congregation Anshai Sfard. Designed by Nathan Douglass and completed in 1903, it's a fine local example of Romanesque Revival architecture, now converted into residential condominiums.
the building
The facade. A two-story brick building with a gabled roof flanked by square towers, its Romanesque Revival styling includes bands of narrow round-arch windows and a large Syrian arch sheltering the main entrance, with brick corbelling banding the eaves of the pyramidal tower roofs and the base of the front gable.
the style
Romanesque Revival here means round-arch windows in banded rows, a dramatic Syrian arch at the entry, and corbelled brick detailing at the towers and gable - decorative brickwork standing in for carved stone.
More on Romanesque Revivalsignificance
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The building has since been converted into residential condominiums.
nearby
- East Cambridge Savings Bank
- Maria Baldwin House
- Margaret Fuller House
- Odd Fellows Hall
- William R. Jones House
- George Wyatt House