CAPITAL CAMPAIGN UPDATE - May 18, 2004

Now that actual, real life, physical work has begun on the building, we will once again be providing weekly updates about where we are in our renovation project.

Many of you may have noticed the trees in front of the building being trimmed in preparation for the painting of the façade. We also broke through the sidewalk to replace our main water line.

The plumbers began their work inside as well, doing a copper re-pipe for the ancient iron plumbing.

In the main sanctuary the seats were removed and taken to the factory where they will be reupholstered, repainted and restained. The boxes for the books on the back of the chairs will also be made bigger. (By the way, the guy doing the chairs for us did the original chairs for the shul and was a longtime member who had his bar mitzvah at B’nai David-Judea. He feels a deep sense of loyalty and love for the place, so our seats are in good hands). The bima, mechtiza and part of the stage were all taken out. The aron has been covered for protection. The fluorescent lights were removed from the sides of the sanctuary to make room for the windows. We will all sorely miss those glowing tubes.

Basically, the sanctuary is now one huge empty space.

The beit medrash, the area for the elevator, and other locations in the building have also been gutted.

Meetings were held with the security company, the fire alarm company, the elevator company and the artist who is crafting our mechitza. Internal meetings took place with lay leaders and our project professionals to make sure all details of the plan are in order.

We also met with a bird eradication company (if you’ve ever been near the tower, you’ll know why this is a real problem). One option is to take the birds away for six months to some bird spa to get them to find another homing area (this if for real, no joke), another option is a simpler plan to feed the birds chemical-laced food that induces forgetfulness so that when they fly off they don’t remember how to get back to B’nai David-Judea and they find somewhere else to roost. We are assured this is a humane and safe option. We are also assured that this symptom will not be passed on to the members. We will update you on which option the contractor selects.

Until next week…