Shul Demolition

There has been much coverage in local news sources of the roof collapse and subsequent full demolition of a synagogue on the Lower East Side. The NY Times ran a piece today on how unhappy preservationists are about the fact that the building had fallen in to such disrepair that its roof caved in:

The demolition of a 150-year-old synagogue on the Lower East Side is generating widespread criticism among preservationists, who say that one of the city's historic religious buildings has been lost because too little was done to save it.

...City officials said the demolition was legal. The synagogue's roof collapsed in late January, and permits were issued on Wednesday by the Department of Buildings to take down what remained of the synagogue because it posed a safety hazard.

But in the weeks since the roof collapsed, apparently ensuring the building's demolition, preservationists have recounted a litany of miscues and failed efforts to help shore up the sagging building, which flourished during the waves of 19th-century Jewish immigration but whose congregation and finances have dwindled in recent years.

This post from Gothamist also shows how the demolition has captured the interest of so many locals:

Tragedy on Rivington Street
Everyone in LES is still pretty stunned by the demolition of the Rivington Street temple that took place last week. We walked by over the weekend, and tons of people were still gathering on the sidewalk, staring into the ruined shell of a building that was once described as "Carnegie Hall for Cantors." Everyone had their cameras out-- snapping pictures of the remaining back wall, which still had the stained glass and undamaged bema.

The shul's demise has even gained enough local interest to spawn its own conspiracy theories:

We've heard lots of conspiracy theories that the congregation allowed the roof to deteriorate in order that it would collapse and give them an excuse to sell the building. Let's hope that's not true.

One would certainly hope.

What I find so interesting is the obvious pain the shul's destruction is causing for its neighborhood - and not necessarily solely from the Orthodox sector. Another point that occured to me is that I vividly remember all the anger and despair that was expressed in the blog world regarding the destruction of the shuls in Gush Katif after the disengagement. I admit freely that there is a distinction here, namely that those shuls were deliberately destroyed simply for the sake of their destruction, and this shul fell into disrepair due to neglect. Still and all, I would have expected to see some distress expressed somewhere in the blogosphere by those who were so pained last summer by the destruction of shuls 6,000 miles away. Stripped of all its political significance, is the destruction of a shul an equally terrible event no matter where and when it occurs? Shouldn't it be?