First Roumanian-American Congregation - Subsequent Building Renovations and Appearance in The 1990s

Subsequent Building Renovations and Appearance in The 1990s

In the years following First Roumanian-American's initial purchase and renovation of the Rivington Street building, the congregation made a number of other structural alterations. These included:

• 1916–1917: Adding fire escapes on the east and west sides of the building.
• 1920s or later: Installing individual theatre-style seats in the gallery.
• 1938–1943: Removing the staircase to the fourth floor, leaving access only from the fire escapes.
• 1948–1950: Reconstructing the portico with some of the existing stone and brick, and adding new "fireproof steel stairs with terrazzo treads" and light-yellow and blue tinted glass windows on the east and west walls of the sanctuary, and other improvements.
• 1964: Adding a kitchen to the basement "for social purposes".

In the 1990s, the north-facing orange-red brick facade presented a large, compound arched brick and stone portico, with deeply recessed doors. This arch was "supported by three carved columns, two twisted columns, and a central column with a chevron pattern, each with a Byzantine-style capital", and had a stone coping on top. Carved into the portico arch in capital letters were the words "First Roumanian-American Congregation".

Originally there were large rectangular window openings on the ground floor on each side of the portico, each divided into two windows, but these had been bricked in by the 1990s. The second- and third-floor windows above them were originally stained glass but later clear glass, each second-floor window having eight square panes, and each third-floor window six panes topped with an arch. "Ornamental red terra cotta panels" separated the second- and third-floor openings. On the third floor, centered above the portico, was a similar window, this one flanked by two short recessed twisted columns, each "supporting a stone lintel incised with a cupid's-bow ornament". Similar lintels capped three-story pilasters at each corner of the facade, and these pilasters and lintels extended around the northeast and northwest corners. The six-paned windows were each capped with a roundel and three spandrels, "two large and one small", and these retained their original stained glass.

The shallow fourth floor was demarcated on the bottom by "a heavy frieze and corbelled brick cornice", which supported "eight round-arched windows with molded brick voussoirs ... massed in a 3-2-3 pattern". By the 1990s these had also been bricked in. The attic on top of the fourth floor, added during the 1902–1903 renovations, was "capped by a band of small red terra-cotta blocks".

The sides of the building were faced with plain brick, and flanked by narrow alleys with iron gates at each entrance. The walls generally had plain windows, though there was a round arched one on each side of the fourth floor. One fire escape remained, in the east alley.

Inside, the building held a two-story balconied main sanctuary and dining room, in addition to the basement kitchen and bathrooms. The heating system was in a sub-basement. The front ark and wood bimah in the sanctuary were ornate; the red velvet draped ark was elaborately decorated, and the bimah was also decorated, and supported a large bronze candelabra. The sanctuary floor was wood, with wood wainscoting and plaster walls.