By reading The Little House (or watching our video storytime), you learn how buildings and communities change together over time. In many ways, the story of the Little House is remarkably similar to the story of the Eldridge Street Synagogue. Built in 1887, the Eldridge Street Synagogue was part of a vibrant Eastern European Jewish immigrant neighborhood. Back then, the Lower East Side was the most crowded neighborhood in the world! Tenement apartment buildings, sweatshops, pushcarts and horses were common sites outside. But just as the little house’s farms and orchards were gradually replaced by subways and skyscrapers, the neighborhood around the synagogue changed and became home to new immigrant communities. The little house and the Eldridge Street Synagogue are both remnants of an older type of community. While we couldn’t move our synagogue, a dedicated group of people did carefully restore it.