Sutton Place Synagogue was founded more than 100 years ago, in 1902, but our roots extend back even before the dawn of the 20th century. That’s when a small Jewish population in the eastern portion of Manhattan’s Midtown area – a neighborhood populated mainly by people of German and Irish ancestry – banded together as a community in order to perpetuate the Jewish life they had left behind in traveling to America.

We’ve never been able to substantiate the rumor that the first quarters of the new synagogue they formed were in a loft above a pool hall, but, suffice it to say that Sutton Place Synagogue has evolved from truly humble origins!

A handful of locations and expansions later, all in the Sutton Place area, the new Sutton Place Synagogue was officially opened on September 3, 1975 at 225 East 51st Street. A common thread throughout our entire proud history is a sense of spiritual and cultural cohesiveness that has brought generations of New York’s Jewish population, regardless of background, together as a single, forward-looking community. It’s with that sense of pride and foresight that Sutton Place Synagogue continues to write its history, each and every day.