Shreeve has 1,016 former synagogues in her database and expects the project to wind up soon. She hopes to find records for the other boroughs, especially Brooklyn.

The pandemic has reconfigured faith-based organizations’ relationships with their buildings and their communities. This report reiterates the deep connection between faith institutions and their communities.

Called the 2020 Grunin Prize for Law and Social Entrepreneurship, it was awarded to a legal team at Goldstein Hall, a law firm in New York City that devised a way for community development corporations to band together, the better to develop affordable multifamily housing in the Big Apple.

‘An Invitation to Faith and Non-Profit Communities’ forum was held on Tuesday, October 29.

While some sites are still holes in the ground, replacement buildings elsewhere are up and running. A longtime synagogue on West 179th Street, for instance, has given way to the Ammann, an eight-story, 24-unit condo from Orient Development. The Washington Heights Congregation, which relocated to an existing building nearby, sold the site in 2014 for $2.6 million.

“We’ve repaired the roof four or five times already, and the same thing happens,” Rev. Darnell Harper said. “It is definitely a building that is breaking down.”

Much of the church’s financial success has been attributed to their tax-exempt status as well as wise management of their holdings which can be traced to a gift of 215 acres from Queen Anne in 1705.