Moise Safra Community Center, New York, NY
LOCATION 130-134 East 82nd Street, New York, NY
SCALE 65,000 square feet, 12 stories
ARCHITECT PBDW Architects
STATUS To be completed 2015
The Moise Safra Community Center is a new multi-purpose facility that will serve New York’s young Sephardic community. New York City’s Syrian Sephardic Jewish population has spent most of the past century living in established Brooklyn communities in Bensonhurst, Midwood, Flatbush, and Gravesend. However, a recent migration into Manhattan has led developer/rabbi Elie Abadie to build a synagogue, Congregation Edmond J. Safra, and a preschool, the Sephardic Academy of Manhattan, and now to announce his biggest project yet, a 12-story, 65,000 square foot, $50 million, glassy behemoth of a community center at 130-134 East 82nd Street. Three adjoining townhouses are set to be demolished by March 2014 to make way for the Moise Safra Community Center, which will be designed by PBDW Architects. According to Tablet Magazine, the center will open in 2015 and “will feature a kosher café, a swimming pool, exercise and recreation rooms, a kitchen for cooking classes, and a two-level banquet hall with an outdoor terrace graced by skyline views and a ‘glamour pool.'”