Over the winter, we were thrilled to share the news that a former synagogue at the corner of 6th & Bainbridge, long home to an antiques market, was being converted into thirteen apartments. We praised the developers, the owners of Bella Vista Beer and the nearby Bainbridge Street Barrel House, for preserving the building and not tearing it down. Standing in contrast to so much new construction these days, this building has tremendous character and numerous details that mark its original use.
Unfortunately, we just learned that many of those details were just removed from the building for reasons we just can't comprehend. Just an hour ago, a reader sent us a photo of one of the workers on the site chipping out on the Jewish stars on the building's facade.
Why in the world did the developers act so aggressively to remove the Hebrew words that marked the building's history? Unfortunately, we don't believe there's any way to restore the 110-year-old stone work, so it's now lost forever but for the traces. And we imagine that those will either be covered up or buffed out.
We just don't understand.