until the founding of Baith Israel "[h]itherto the Hebrew residents in Brooklyn had been under the necessity of finding their way across the East River in all kinds of weather, when they wished to go to their place of worship". According to synagogue legend, the founders had grown tired of rowing across the East River each Friday to celebrate Shabbat in Manhattan. Carol Levin, however, writes that a ferry service from Whitehall Street in Manhattan to South Ferry, Brooklyn (at the foot of Atlantic Street) had existed since 1836 (see South Ferry (ferry)), that the Atlantic Street synagogue's location, so close to the ferry terminus, "must have seemed convenient to many", and that "[f]erry service was fast, frequent and inexpensive ... In the year 1869 there were almost 52 million passengers." Thus, in her view, the story of the founders growing tired of rowing across the East River is a "folk tale". Attempts at reform and amalgamation, construction of first synagogue In the congregation's early years, tensions existed between traditionalists and reformers, and in 1861, 41 of the latter left Baith Israel to form the Congregation Beth Elohim, a Reform synagogue. That year Baith Israel hired the Reverend Joel Alexander as its religious leader. Alexander, the synagogue's first full-time rabbi, was a graduate of the Jews Seminary in Münster, and had been ordained both in Posen and by Hermann Adler, the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom. In 1862, the remaining 35 members purchased two lots at the corner of State Street and Boerum Place in Boerum Hill for $3,000 (today $), and on January 12 laid the cornerstone for a new building, the first synagogue built on Long Island. The building was completed on August 12, at a cost of $10,000 (today $), and was consecrated on August 31 by Alexander and assembled dignitaries. The synagogue, which came to be known as the Boerum Schule, created a Sunday school soon afterwards, the first in Brooklyn, and at the time, an innovation. The school was free, and run by volunteers, with separate classes for boys and girls. By 1890 the school had 160 students, and at its peak the school had 500 pupils. In 1869 reformers again left Baith Israel, and, joining with dissenters from Kahal Kodesh Beth Elohim of Williamsburg, founded Temple Israel. Though many reformers had left the congregation, several reforms in the service were nonetheless introduced: the