NYC hospital threatening to demolish historic synagogue in money-grabbing housing deal

A Brooklyn hospital group is pushing to demolish a nearly 100-year-old synagogue as part of an affordable housing project — sparking calls from the local Jewish community for New Yorkers to help save the piece of history.The Kingsbrook Shul in East Flatbush — which was built in 1927 in response to a rise in antisemitism — launched a bid to stop the house of worship from getting demolished to make way for the 266-unit mega-project.The site is located on the Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center campus, owned and operated by the nonprofit One Brooklyn Health — which is seeking to convert the campus into an affordable housing complex.“The way they see it is there’s a sort of conflict, you know, a choice between affordable housing and the preservation of the shul,” attorney for the synagogue, Stuart Blader, told The Post Friday.“That is false.”The $400 million state-funded conversion project was announced in 2023.Initial renderings called for the synagogue to be torn down – but alternative renderings and written agreements from the state called for the historic building to remain untouched in the construction process, Blader said.The synagogue shuttered in 2020 during the COVID pandemic, but a group of local Orthodox Jews who worshipped there have been hoping to return, and filed suit in Brooklyn Supreme Court last year in a bid to stop One Brooklyn Health from tearing it down.An attorney for One Brooklyn Health argued in court Wednesday that it didn’t make sense for the house of worship to remain as a “zombie structure” once the campus is transformed into the housing complex, Gothamist reported.“The law, the facts, the public policy and, I would argue, the sympathy are on the hospital’s side,” attorney Jason Hsi said, according to the outlet.The standalone building adorned with stained glass windows was built by the Jewish community nearly a century ago.

It expanded to become a community center that served the surrounding area in the 1950s, ...