Emmanuel Episcopal / Shearith Israel
Secular art gallery was formerly Episcopal chapel and Jewish synagogue
Emmanuel Episcopal / Shearith Israel
✟ Christian (Episocopal), ✡ Jewish Nonreligious | Denver, CO
This 24’ x 66’ stone building at the corner of Tenth and Lawrence in Denver is considered the city’s “oldest surviving religious building,” though it is no longer used for religious purposes. It was founded as Emmanuel Episcopal and financed by a Bostonian who wanted to build a church in honor of his daughter. Combining Romanesque and Gothic influences, the chapel was consecrated on September 24, 1877. The congregation moved out in 1893, around the time that west Denver was seeing an influx of eastern European Jewish immigrants. A congregation called Shearith Israel (English: Remnant of Israel) bought the building in 1903 and converted it to a synagogue. It became affectionately known as the “Tenth Street Shul.” After World War II, the congregation declined, and the synagogue closed in 1958, though local businessmen continued to use it sporadically until 1965. In 1973, the Auraria Higher Education Center bought the building and renovated it into a campus art gallery. Now called Emmanuel Gallery, it hosts rotating art exhibits from students, professors, and others.
Yet a Hebrew inscription remains over the front entrance. It reads Beit Knesset Shearit Yisroel, or Shearith Israel Synagogue, a permanent reminder of its religious past.
Sources: Colorado Encyclopedia | Emmanuel Gallery | Amy Shapiro, A Guide to the Jewish Rockies (Rocky Mtn. Jewish Hist. Soc’y, Univ. of Denver 1979)
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