Jewish houses of worship: In the years preceding the building's collapse, the congregation had received offers of assistance from the New York Landmarks Conservancy, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Lower East Side Conservancy, and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, though reports on the amounts and types of assistance offered varied. The congregation, then under the leadership of Jacob Spiegel, rejected them. Joel Kaplan of the Lower East Side Conservancy stated that the congregation "didn't want the several hundred thousand dollars in landmarking grants that went to other Lower East shuls, money that could have kept the shul in repair". The reasons given for this rejection also varied. According to Vitullo-Martin, writing in The Wall Street Journal, Shmuel Spiegel was not sure why the offers were rejected, as the records were "buried in the rubble". Vitullo-Martin speculated that congregants might have hesitated to agree to a condition that they would need permission from the state for any sale or alteration of the building during the following 20 years. According to The New York Times, Spiegel stated that the repairs required were so extensive that the congregation could not have made them even with this financial assistance. According to The Jewish Week, Spiegel stated that the congregation "didn't want outside interference", was "uncomfortable with the idea of being landmarked and having to answer to landmark guidelines", and was also uncomfortable with making part of the building into a "museum of past glory", as others nearby had done. Zachter writes: Notes References Singing in the Dark, National Center for Jewish Film website. Accessed September 15, 2009. Further reading Zachter, Mort. Dough: A Memoir, University of Georgia Press, 2007. External links , The New York Times, February 28, 1910. Photographs of First Roumanian-American from March 1994 by Gene Lowinger. "Breaking: Rivington Street Synagogue Deconstruction?", Curbed NY, February 7, 2006. "On the Market: Incredible Shrinking Synagogue Site", Curbed NY, March 14, 2006. "Incredible Shrinking Synagogue Listing", Curbed NY, March 16, 2006. "More Bad News from Incredible Shrinking Synagogue", Curbed NY, March 31, 2006. "CurbedWire: Incredible Shrinking Synagogue, $14m", Curbed NY, September 25, 2006. 1885 establishments in New York (state) Buildings and structures demolished in 2006 Demolished churches in New York City Demolished buildings and structures in Manhattan Former Presbyterian churches in New York City Former synagogues in New York (state) Lower East Side Orthodox synagogues in New York