Constructed for a German-Jewish Reform congregation, Park Avenue Synagogue, seen here in 1927, the year it was dedicated, was one of the last Moorish-Revival Jewish houses of worship built in the United States.

The Moorish style offered an alternative to the Greco-Roman or Gothic-Revival silhouettes that were often used for churches. It was a style that had been used for synagogues in Germany as early as the 1830s and remained widely popular for Jewish sacred spaces until the First World War.

With its mix of German language, Jewish religion, and Mediterranean accents, the Park Avenue Synagogue was a uniquely American place: when the Synagogue was dedicated in March 1927, Mayor Jimmy Walker, the Episcopal Bishop of New York City William T. Manning, and New York Supreme Court Justice Thomas C. T. Crain were all in attendance.

Congregants, who had originally founded the Synagogue in 1882 in a converted church at 115 East 86th, now had created a dramatic new space for themselves in the city.

The Upper East Side’s stunning array of ecclesiastical architecture offers many more instances of immigrant communities announcing their arrival in New York through beautiful houses of worship. In each of these spaces, congregants could come together not only to strengthen the bonds of their communities but also to assert their collective American ambition and success.