{geni:occupation} Architect
{geni:about_me} Leopold Eidlitz (March 10, 1823, Prague, Bohemia — 1908, New York City) was a prominent New York architect.
from [
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Eidlitz Wikipedia]
He is best known for his work on the New York State Capitol (Albany, New York, 1876–1881), as well as "Iranistan" (1848), P. T. Barnum's house in Bridgeport, Connecticut; St. Peter's Church, on Westchester Avenue at St. Peter's Avenue in the Bronx (1853); the former Temple Emanu-El (New York, 1866–68, destroyed 1927); the Broadway Tabernacle (1859, demolished about 1907); the completion of the Tweed Courthouse (1876–81); and the Park Presbyterian Chapel onWest 86th Street and Amsterdam Avenue.
Eidlitz was born in Prague into a Jewish family; his parents were Abraham and Judith Eidlitz, and he had one brother Markus (later Marc) Eidlitz. He received his early technical training at the Prague Realschule and then continuedhis education at the Vienna Technical University. He enrolled in its short-lived business school, not its engineering or architecture curricula. Eidlitz emigrated from Vienna to the United States in 1843 and settled in New York.His brother Marc emigrated to New York three years later.
Eidlitz married Harriet Amanda Lazelle Warner in 1845. He had worked with her father Cyrus Lazelle Warner (1789–1852). Her mother was Elizabeth Wadland Adams (1792–1860), who, despite claims she made during her lifetime, was not descended from President John Adams. By means of this marriage Eidlitz helped secure his family's social place in the United States. Episcopal priest Stephen Tyng presided their wedding. They had seven children, but the first diedsoon after birth.[3]
Eidlitz has been called America's first Jewish architect. In his early work, as at the Shaaray Tefila synagogue, Eidlitz identified himself as Jewish to clients (1846–48). Other evidence suggests he later hid his heritage; his marriage was officiated by the Episcopal priest Tyng, and the Eidlitz children were raised as Christian, according to their mother's tradition. Eidlitz presented himself as simply German or Austrian and he Germanicized his parents' given names on American records. One of his daughters, Mari Imogene Eidlitz, was married in a Catholic ceremony in 1887 at St. Anne's Church in New York.[3]
citations
* 3. Kathryn E. Holliday, Leopold Eidlitz: Architecture and Idealism in the Gilded Age. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008, pp. 29–30, 69
Sources
* U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989 Name: '''Abraham Eidlitz''' Gender: Male Spouse: Julie Eidlitz Publication Title: New York, New York, City Directory, '''1857''' Source Information: Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, [databaseon-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. '''Eidlitz, Julia wid Abraham, h 198 East 13th Street'''. Also: Eidlitz, Leopold, architect, office 208 Broadway. Eidlitz, Marcus, mason, office 208 Broadway.
Links
*
http://eng.archinform.net/arch/11363.mobi.htm