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Louis Allen Abramson
Born	1887
Died	January 15, 1985(1985-01-15) (aged 97–98) New York, US
Other names	Louis Abrahamson
Occupation	Architect
Buildings	Daughters of Jacob Geriatric Center

Louis Allen Abramson (1887 – January 15, 1985) was an American architect who practiced mostly in New York City, specializing in hospitals, nursing homes, and restaurants. He is best known for designing the Daughters of Jacob Geriatric Center at 1201 Findlay Ave in the Bronx.

Abramson had little formal training; he took courses at Cooper Union, the Mechanics Institute, and Columbia University did not complete a degree; most of his training was from working at junior positions in the firms of several well known New York City architecture firms. He used a variety of styles, including Neo-Renaissance, Moorish Revival, Neo-Classical, Tudor, Art Deco, and Art Moderne, with several of his buildings having been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Early life and education

Louis Allen Abramson (also known as Louis Abrahamson) was born in New York City in 1887. He and his wife Pearl had two daughters, Anita Clair and Judith.

Abramson did not have a traditional architecture education; he attended Cooper Union as a civil engineering student and then the Mechanics Institute but did not graduate from either. His introduction to architecture came when he took a job as an office boy and later a draftsman for John H. Duncan, a well-known New York City architect. After leaving Duncan's employ, Abramson moved to Seattle but did not stay there for many years. Upon his return to New York, he took extension courses at Columbia University and was hired by Louis Gerard as a draftsman where he learned to appreciate the Beaux-Arts style.

Early in his career, Abramson developed an appreciation of the work of McKim, Mead & White, being especially fond of the University Club and Penn Station. When interviewed in 1980, Abramson said:

When they started to destroy the Penn Station I used to go over there and cry. To me it was perfection, perfection. And then I'd walk, at times I'd commute to Grand Central. I had admiration for it, but in a totally different sense. Penn Station was ... I don't know how I can really say it. I felt meek in the presence of that building.

He was particularly impressed with the spacing of the bronze letters on the Seventh Avenue side of the building, which inspired him to study architectural lettering. Abramson also admired the work of Cass Gilbert, saying that he "admired modernity, if one may use that expression, his breakaway from the classical school".

World's Fair competition

In 1936, Abramson submitted a sketch to a design competition for the 1939 New York World's Fair. The competition asked for designs of "a typical building" which could be used for applied arts exhibits, with limits on interior and exterior dimensions, and intended to be sited with two other exhibit buildings grouped together in a three-sided plot. In a review of the submissions, Pencil Points editor Kenneth Reid described Abramson's design:

Louis Allen Abramson was given a mention but his plan has the obvious fault of forcing visitor to retrace steps against traffic to see entire show or else go through whole group and return – a food-weary schema. Elevations are simple but apparently resulted from desire to be modern.

Buildings

Home of the Daughters of Jacob

In 1916, Abramson designed the Home of the Daughters of Jacob on 167th Street between Findlay and Teller Avenues in the Bronx. The building consists of eight wings arranged radially around a central core, and has been described as "novel in design, being in the form of a wheel". The property consists of 36 lots which were previously part of Gouverneur Morris's estate; at the time of purchase by the Daughters of Jacob, it was still occupied by Morris's 1812 house which was torn down to make room for the new building.

The central core contained administrative offices and was topped by a tower, which at the time of its construction was the highest point in the Bronx. The eight wings were residences for more than 1,000 elderly men and women, replacing the existing home run by the Daughters of Jacob at 301 East Broadway in Manhattan, which could only house 200 people. The plans for the new building included a synagogue with seating for 1,000 people, a 600-seat dining room, as well as a hospital, library, and a turkish bath, with construction costs estimated to be $300,000 (equivalent to $8,400,000 in 2023).

By 1973, the building was deemed no longer fit for its original purpose, owing to new health codes. Abramson, then 84 years old, was part of the design team which modernized the building, connecting it by pedestrian bridges to new buildings on the opposite sides of Findlay and Teller Avenues. Abramson told the New York Times, "At the time it was designed, it was philosophically right in that institutions felt they fulfilled their obligations to the elderly by providing them with bed and board. It was a question of providing wards with no recognition of individual dignity or privacy."

Jewish centers

Abramson designed a number of Jewish Centers, not all of which contained that phrase in their name. Historian Anthony Robbins describes this type of building as:

A new, and particularly American, synagogue innovation ... which served not only as a place of worship, but also as a center of community life. Besides a sanctuary, a Jewish center would include classrooms and social halls and, in larger synagogues, even gymnasiums and swimming pools.

86th Street Jewish Center

Abramson designed the Jewish Center at 131 West 86th Street in Manhattan. Built in 1917–1920, this synagogue and community center is a 10-story brick and stone building in the Neo-Renaissance style and is part of the Upper West Side / Central Park West Historic District.

Brooklyn Jewish Center

The Brooklyn Jewish Center at 667 Eastern Parkway between New York and Brooklyn Avenues was built in 1922, designed by Abramson in collaboration with Margon & Glasser. The architectural historian Francis Morrone describes it as being a long building, suitable to the site:

The lower portion is fully rusticated, as are the end bays of the upper portion, creating exactly the kind of rhythm that is so necessary along a wide, long boulevard As a building tailored to its location, it could hardly be improved.

Morrone compares the design to the nearby Catholic High School, which he says similarly fits into the Eastern Parkway environment. The building, which included a synagogue, gymnasium, catering facilities, classrooms and a swimming pool, was built on 11 lots.

Young Israel of Flatbush

Built in 1923, Abramson's Young Israel of Flatbush building at 1012 Avenue I in Brooklyn used a "Semitic" or Moorish revival style popular in the 1920s and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. Featuring moorish influences, this style was also used for contemporary Jewish buildings in Brooklyn by Shampan & Shampan in their 1920 Temple Beth-El of Borough Park at 4802 15th Avenue, and by Tobias Goldstone in his 1928 Kol Israel at 603 St. Johns Place. Anthony Robbins describes the style as:

... combining Moorish ornament with Judaic motifs, a phenomenon that can be traced back to mid-19th century Europe and a belief that the Moorish represented a more “Eastern,” and therefore more culturally appropriate style for Jewish buildings, as opposed to styles based on church architecture

Moorish details in Abram's design included slender minarets, arches in both ogival and horseshoe styles, and polychromatic tile and brick. The Avenue I fasçade uses purple, red, and brown brick laid in irregular geometric patterns. In addition to these Moorish details are more traditional Jewish motifs including the Magen David (six-pointed star of David) and Hebrew inscriptions.

An entrance vestibule and the synagogue office are on the first floor. The second floor includes a public space and classrooms. The main sanctuary on the third floor is two stories tall with large polychromatic leaded glass windows including both geometric patterns and the names of the twelve tribes from Jewish tradition to provide light. The basement was built as a gymnasium and in later years doubled as an auditorium.

Astoria Center of Israel

Abramson designed the Astoria Center of Israel, a synagogue located at 27-35 Crescent Street in Astoria, Queens. The two-story building was built in 1925–1926 as a religious school and community center associated with the adjacent Congregation Mishkan Israel synagogue and continues to be used for its original purpose. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009; the registration form describes it as "a two-story building faced in Flemish-bond striated red brick with faux limestone cast-stone trim and a masonry foundation" and notes that the design "is typical of 1920s American synagogues, combining classical detailing with Judaic symbols".

Ocean Parkway Jewish Center

Abramson's influence can be seen in the Ocean Parkway Jewish Center, designed by Samuel Malkind and Martyn Weinsten; Malkind had worked in Abramson's office early in his career, and followed Abramson's lead "combining neo-Classical ornament with Judaic symbols".

New Israel Hospital

In 1919, Abramson designed a four-story building for the Israel Hospital in Brooklyn, to be located on Tenth Avenue, occupying the entire 200-foot (61 m) block between 48th and 49th streets. The building, with capacity for 200 patients was to provide expansion space for the New Utrecht Dispensary, which later became Maimonides Medical Center. By this time, Abramson had acquired a reputation for designing hospital buildings. Construction cost was originally estimated in May 1919 to be about $250,000 (equivalent to $4,400,000 in 2023). This grew to $400,000 (equivalent to $7,000,000 in 2023) by September of that year.

210 West 78th Street

Abramson designed this 1926 nine-story apartment building in the Tudor style with "a ... facade of irregular brick, peaked gables, and stucco panels framed by wooden strips". It was built at a time when Manhattan's West Side was undergoing extensive development and replaced houses previously numbered 206-212. The previous year, Schwartz & Gross had designed another nine-story building facing it across the street at number 215, which similarly replaced houses at 211- 217. Both of these buildings were set back 5 feet (1.5 m) from the standard building line, complying with a covenant dating back to 1887.

116 John Street

116 John Street is an Art Deco 35 story office building in a sub-section of Manhattan's financial district where many insurance companies have their offices. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1930, developer Julian Kovacs purchased adjacent lots totaling 11,000 square feet (1,000 m) with existing low-rise structures and hired Abramson to design an office tower. Despite the stock market crash a year earlier, real estate development was ongoing in this area, with Art Deco designs being popular, as they "were considered an elegant and stylish form of Modernism". Abramson's design "reflect the geometric influences of Cubism and Futurism", featuring "chevron patterns and organic abstractions" typical of the style, with setbacks as required by New York City's 1916 zoning code.

Shortly after construction began, however, a lawsuit was filed by the owners of the adjacent 111 John Street claiming that the setbacks were insufficient. Based on the width of the street, the suit claimed that the first setback should be at approximately 130 feet (40 m) instead of the planned 250 feet (76 m). The developers of 116 John Street claimed that the setbacks were appropriate based on proximity to the wider public space at Burling Slip. By this time, the foundation had already been completed, contracts for 90% of the required steel had already been issued, and a number of leases had been signed. The suit was dismissed on the basis that it had not been filed soon enough and the cost to correct the problem would be excessive, but the judge did comment that the law should be clarified to prevent future disputes of a similar nature. A 1988 lawsuit during the construction of 108 East 96th Street cited similar concerns.

Restaurants

Abramson designed two restaurants for Horn & Hardart in 1931; one on West 33rd Street in midtown Manhattan, the other on West 181st Street in Washington Heights. These were both automats done in a modern style to meet Horn & Hardart's preference. The first had "a terra-cotta faced, modernistic, two-story facade with the blocky modern reliefs, abstract grillework, stylized floral patterns, and dramatic indirect lighting so typical of the period." In a 1980 interview, Abramson said he had not understood what the client was asking for, so he "simply designed what he liked". The second restaurant was described as "one of the most extravagant of all New York's Automats". The interior featured "extravagant colored glass ceilings" in which "the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings rose towards each other, their spires meeting electrically over a central schematic diagram of the Manhattan street grid".

Starting in 1934, Abramson designed six restaurants for the Longchamps chain in collaboration with artist Winold Reiss. Abramson worked on the exteriors with Reiss producing images related to New York City for the interiors. American Architect and Architecture magazine wrote of the collaboration:

For fhe past two years the happily collaborative talents of an architect and a painter have resulted in better appearance and better business for a well established chain of New York restaurants. Fairly standard in basic elements of form, each restaurant is decorated around a different theme. The most recent in this group uses as its central motif the historical contrasts of New York City. The faqade, mainly of plate glass and satin finished chromium, has its structural parts decorated with glass mosaics in blue, silver and off white.

A 1937 commission was for the Riviera nightclub in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The club was built atop the Palisades, with views of the Hudson River, the George Washington Bridge, and Manhattan; the semi-circular building included unbroken expanses of glass to take advantage of these views. A year after the club opened, Abramson added a series of abstract murals painted by Arshile Gorky. The roof of the building could be opened to allow views of the sky into the club on clear nights.

Abramson designed the Brass Rail restaurant at Idelwild Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy Airport), located in the "temporary terminal building", a quonset hut type structure. Metro Airport News described it as "a restaurant ahead of its time". He also designed, in collaboration with Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker, the Brass Rail concessions at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

West 135th Street library addition

In 1941, Abramson designed an Art Moderne addition to 103 West 135th Street, which at the time was known as the West 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library. This doubled the size of the original 1905 McKim, Mead & White building, extending it to 104 West 136th Street, occupying the site of two townhouses previously owned by Madam C. J. Walker. The cornerstone was laid on October 28, 1941, with construction expected to be completed in early 1942 at a cost of approximately $200,000 (equivalent to $4,100,000 in 2023). As of 2024 this is known as the Countee Cullen Library, honoring American writer Countee Cullen, and is part of the larger Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, which was designated a New York City landmark in 1981.

Personal residence

Abramson bought a property on Indian Hill Road in Yorktown, New York, in 1945 for his personal use as a country retreat. The property came with an undistinguished Cape Cod–style house, which he incrementally expanded to include stone walls, stairways, and porches which provided better views of the surrounding area. Abramson sold the property in 1984. In 2017, the house was listed as a Home of Historic Distinction by the Yorktown Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Death

Abramson died on January 15, 1985, in Manhattan at the age of 98. He was survived by his wife Pearl and his daughters Anita Claire and Judith Abramson.

References

1. ^ "Louis A. Abramson". The New York Times. January 20, 1985. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 12, 2021.
2. Pearson, Marjorie; Urbanelli, Elisa (December 19, 1989). Riverside-West End Historic District (PDF) (Report). New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. p. 268. Retrieved November 9, 2014.
3. Reuben, Jeff (2016). "Revisiting the Bronx's Early Twentieth Century Charitable Residences: Home of the Daughters of Jacob". The Bronx County Historical Society Journal. LIII (1 & 2): 15–16.
4. ^ Serra, Joselita Raspi; Bollack, Françoise Astorg; Killian, Tom. Everyday Masterpieces; Memory & Modernity (PDF) (Report). Edizoni Panini. pp. 212–215. Retrieved November 10, 2024.
5. Upper East Side Historic District Designation Report (PDF) (Report). New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. 1981. p. 1176.
6. Reid, Kenneth (December 1936). "World's Fair Competition" (PDF). Pencil Points: 653–677.
7. ^ "Lay Stone for New Home". New York Times. October 30, 1916. p. 8. Retrieved November 11, 2024.
8. "From Coast to Coast: New York, Cornerstone for New Home Laid". The American Jewish Chronicle. 1 (25): 806. November 3, 1916.
9. Horsley, Carter B. (January 7, 1973). "Home for the Aging reaffirms its Roots". New York Times. pp. 1 (Section 8: Real Estate).
10. ^ Robbins, Anthony W. (2009). "A Shul Grows in Brooklyn (and Queens)" (PDF). Common Bond. 23 (1 and 2). The New York Landmarks Conservancy: 4–11.
11. Upper West Side / Central Park West Historic District Designation Report (PDF) (Report). Vol. III (Building Entries). New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. April 24, 1990. p. 600. Retrieved December 12, 2024.
12. ^ Morrone, Francis (2001). An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn (First ed.). Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith. p. 283. ISBN 1-58685-047-4.
13. "History". Brooklyn Jewish Center. Retrieved November 12, 2024.
14. ^ National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Young Israel of Flatbush (PDF) (Report). December 16, 2009. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
15. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Astoria Center of Israel (PDF) (Report). August 28, 2009. Retrieved November 10, 2024.
16. ^ "To Start Work Next Week on New Israel Hospital". Times Union. Brooklyn. May 11, 1919. p. 12. Retrieved November 10, 2024.
17. "Break Ground this Afternoon for New Israel Hospital". The Brooklyn Daily Times. May 18, 1919. p. 4. Retrieved November 10, 2024.
18. "New Israel Hospital". Brooklyn Eagle. September 28, 1919. p. 6. Retrieved November 10, 2024.
19. "Israel Hospital Plans Raise Cost to $400,000". September 28, 1919. Retrieved November 10, 2024.
20. ^ Gray, Christopher (October 5, 1997). "78th Street Between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway; 1887 Property Restriction Gives Block a Rare Charm". New York Times. p. 5 (section 9). Archived from the original on December 28, 2017. Retrieved December 12, 2024.
21. ^ "116 John Street". National Park Service: National Register of Historic Places. Retrieved December 21, 2024.
22. "Builder Enlarges Downtown Plot". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 22, 2024.
23. Gray, Christopher (July 31, 1988). "Deja Vu in Zoning Dispute". The New York Times. p. 8 (Real Estate, section 10). ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 22, 2024. The argument over the height of 116 John Street, which was built 58 years ago, sounds just like the current zoning dispute case at 108 East 96th Street, a dispute that has caught the public's attention because it is so unusual.
24. "Restaurant Longchamps / New York City" (PDF). American Architect and Architecture: 63–66. December 1936.
25. ^ Spampanato, Jerry (April 17, 2024). "Before JFK, There Was Idlewild". Metropolitan Airport News. Retrieved December 22, 2024.
26. ^ Abramson, Louis Allen (Spring 2018). "Art Deco Automats in 1930: An Interview with Louis Allen Abramson". Journal of the Art Deco Society of New York (Interview). Interviewed by Anthony W. Robins. pp. 7–9.
27. "Museum of the City of New York - New York World's Fair 1939". collections.mcny.org. Retrieved December 22, 2024.
28. ^ "About the Countee Cullen Library". The New York Public Library. Retrieved December 12, 2024.
29. "Virtual Tour of Malcolm X Boulevard" (pdf). New York City Department of City Planning. Site 51: Countee Cullen Branch, New York Public Library.
30. "Cornerstone for Extension to 135th Street Branch Public Library". The New York Age. November 1, 1941. p. 1. Retrieved December 13, 2024.
31. "Manhattan Carnegie Library, Schomburg Collection for Research in Black Culture". Historic Districts Council. June 21, 2018. Retrieved December 12, 2024.
32. "Home of architect Louis A. Abramson" (PDF). Yorktown News. April 27, 2017. p. 18. Retrieved November 10, 2024.

Further reading

• Scarr, Cindy (November 30, 2021). "When Zaidy Was No Longer Young: The Story of the Home of the Daughters of Jacob -". Mishpacha. Retrieved November 11, 2024.
• "Louis A. Abramson's 1926 210 West 78th Street". daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com. June 22, 2021. Retrieved December 12, 2024. 210 West 78th Street
• "Louis Allen Abramson". New York Streets: Jews in Monuments and Names (in Russian).

• Architects from New York City
• 1887 births
• 1985 deaths
• 20th-century American architects
• Cooper Union alumni