AKA: Breed Street Shul, Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, CA; Congregation Torah Talmud Synagogue, Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, CA

Structure Type: built works - religious structures - synagogues

Designers: Edelman and Zimmerman, Architects (firm); Gorelnick, Hyman, Building Contractor (firm); Leo W. Barnett (architect); Abram M. Edelman (architect); Maxwell Maltzman (architect); Archie C. Zimmerman (architect)

Dates: constructed 1923

247 North Breed Street
Los Angeles, CA 90033-2902

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Services at the synagogue were last held in 1993.

The main synagogue was dedicated 06/03/1923; the Breed Street Synagogue was erected for Congregation Talmud Torah of Los Angeles, which was the largest Orthodox Jewish congregation in the West during the first half of the twentieth century; this congregation founded the first Jewish day school in Los Angeles at this site; known as one of the few Byzantine Revival structures built in Los Angeles; the Breed Street Synagogue Building was named Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #359 in 1988; in 2004, this was the last synagogue remaining as a Jewish house of worship in the Boyle Heights neighborhood;

Alterations were made in 1928, 1930, 1932 (structural members were reinforced at this time), 1936, and 1948. Architect Max Maltzman supervised the addition of a one-story frame addition to the synagogue in 1930. Local Jewish groups began collecting funds for a large-scale renovation of the Breed Street Synagogue in the early-to-mid 1990s.

Demolition was threatened in 1993, and five years of behind the scenes activity resulted in the City of Los Angeles buying the synagogue in 1998 and then turning ownership over to the Jewish Historical Society. In 2009, this restoration group was known as the Breed Street Shul Project, Incorporated.

Los Angeles City Historical-Cultural Monument: 359

PCAD id: 3434