mural for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum by William Karp (1938) In 1822, the
Hebrew Benevolent Society was established by
Ashkenazic Jews from central and eastern Europe to break away from similar organizations founded by the city’s community of
Sephardic Jews who have more established ties in New York. Conflicts between the two groups, however, delayed the creation of a Jewish orphanage for nearly forty years. A major breakthrough happened in 1858, following the kidnapping of
Edgardo Mortara, a six-year-old Italian Jewish boy, in the
Papal States, which intensified fears among Jews over Catholic proselytizing. As a child, Edgardo was secretly baptized by a Catholic servant and was forcibly taken from his Jewish family to be brought up as a Catholic. The threat of Jewish children being secretly converted under the care of non-Jewish institutions was a major factor that unified Jews from different nationalities to pool resources and open the
Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York (HOA) in 1960. By 1850, New York had nearly 100 orphanages, most of which were run by private religious groups like HOA that catered to children based on race and religion. The Hebrew Orphan Asylum, which was located in a rented three story brickhouse on Lamartine Place (now West 29th Street) in
Chelsea in 1860, opened with several dozen Jewish boys and girls. On each holiday the children were taken to a different synagogue, to placate the different brands of Judaism of the sponsoring organizations. During the
Draft Riots, the mobs came to the very street where the orphanage was, but did not attack it, unlike the Colored Children's Orphan Asylum. In November 1863 the orphanage moved to a purpose-built home on East 77th Street near Third Avenue. In the orphanage, girls were taught domestic skills, while the boys were taught shoemaking and printing; the orphanage's printshop produced a magazine,
Young Israel, to which
Horatio Alger supplied a
serial novel. In 1874 the organization renamed itself the "Hebrew Benefit Society and Orphan Asylum," and agreed to accept $110 a year in public funds to care for each orphan. In 1878, the organization, overwhelmed, agreed to accept only Manhattan children. This led to the formation of the
Hebrew Orphan Asylum of the City of Brooklyn. Between 1860 and 1919, some 13,500 children were admitted to the home. Few children, however, were adopted, since most were actually half-orphans, members of a family which one parent (usually the father) had deserted and which the surviving parent could not support. The asylum was used, in effect, as a boarding school. In 1884 the Hebrew Benevolent Society constructed a large building at Amsterdam Avenue, between 136th and 138th Streets, in the Modern Renaissance style, designed by
William H. Hume. The building cost $750,000 (including the land), and $60,000 a year to operate. The building eventually had a capacity of 1,755 children. It was so self-sufficient that it was able to survive for a week on its own after it was cut off during the
Blizzard of 1888. After a dysentery outbreak in 1898, caused by impurities in the city's water supply, left seven children dead, the building installed its own water filtration system. During the
influenza epidemic of 1918 not a single child in the orphanage died. In 1915 the Child Welfare Act was passed, which granted allowances to widows. Within two years the orphanage population in the city shrank by 3,000 children as women became able to care for their children. By 1920 the orphanage was losing its position to the Pleasantville Cottage School (established 1912), which, unlike the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, was not a large institutional building but a group of cottages in a rural area. The Hebrew Orphan Asylum decided to rebuild on the cottage system on land that it owned in the Bronx; it would raise money to do this by selling the orphanage to the
Yankees, who wanted land to build a rival stadium to the
Polo Grounds. This deal fell through, the Yankees instead built a
stadium in the Bronx, and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum closed in 1941. After the Asylum closed in 1941, the building was used by
City College to house members of the U.S. Armed Forces assigned to the
Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP). From 1946 to 1955, it was used as a dormitory, library, and classroom space for the college. It was called "Army Hall" until it was demolished in 1955 and 1956 by the
New York City Department of Parks, who replaced it with the Jacob H. Schiff Playground. ==Cultural influences==