The Adams Street Shul

The successful descendants of the original founders did not stay in the old immigrant neighborhood.  They moved away to then up-and-coming middle class Jewish neighborhoods like Dorchester and Roxbury.

This pattern was common to all the shuls of the period.  Originally, The Adams Street Shul would have been unremarkable.  It has become unique because of its survival.  But it almost suffered the fate of so many others.

The community dwindled until it could no longer afford to heat or maintain the building.  The roof leaked.  The walls were wet inside, dark and mildewed.

To create a reduced but maintainable space, part of the lobby and part of the sanctuary were combined and enclosed to make a small space for worship and study.  It could be heated with a small space heater, and used while the rest of the shul froze.  The Ark could be seen through a hinged window that flips up and can be held open on a hook.

The construction of this space ended the Romanesque left-right symmetry of both the sanctuary and the lobby, and its ceiling cut across the middle of one of the windows.

(Today this space is the home of the Manis Albert Memorial Library, also used as the shul office.)

Eventually, the shul could no longer make even a weekly Sabbath minyan.  For over thirty  years there were no weekly services.

A member named Elmer Lippin maintained the shul.  He opened it every week, waited (for no one), finally swept it out, locked it up again, and went home.  He did this for decades.  When incredulous friends would ask why he was doing this he would reply, "A shul miz zein offin."  (A shul must be open.)