New $2,500,000 Building of 92nd St. Y.m.h.a. Opens

Climaxing two years of construction activity, the new $2,500,000 building of the 92nd St. Y.M.H.A. will be opened this morning to provide a recreational center for the Jewish youth of New York. The largest and most complete of the Jewish community centers in the United States, the structure is the only building of its kind which provides dormitory accommodations for Jewish young men.

2 AUDITORIUMS SEAT 1,300

Two auditoriums, one of which is the gift of Henry Kaufmann, Pittsburgh merchant, will have a combined seating capacity of 1,300. The Theresa Kaufmann Auditorium, named in memory of Mr. Kaufmann’s late wife, is equipped as a modern little theatre, and cost $200,000 to construct. Living quarters for 235 young men are provided through the medium of 165 single and 35 double rooms located on the upper five floors.

Formal dedication exercises will be held in the Fall at which time activities will be officially inaugurated by a program representing all departments of the institution and culminating in a formal dinner on the final night of the exercises.

FUND CAMPAIGN STARTED FEB., 1927

The campaign for funds for a new Y.M.H.A. building was first publicly announced on February 6, 1927 by the then Supreme Court Justice Joseph M. Proskauer, president of the Association, at a dinner in connection with the fifty-third annual meeting of the institution held in the old building on the same site. Among the individual contributions to the campaign were a gift of $100,000 from Felix M. Warburg, a donation of $50,000 by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Mr. Kaufmann’s gift, and an award of $175,000 from the estate of the late Conrad Hubert, the executors of which were ex-President Calvin Coolidge, former Governor Alfred E. Smith and Julius Rosenwald of Chicago.

MEMBERS OF ADMINISTRATION

Those in charge of administration and program of the new building include Jack Nadel, executive director; M. W. Beckelman, membership secretary; David M. Dorin, business secretary; Herman Jacobs, director of social and educational activities; Irwin Rosen, director of vocational guidance; the Rev. Dr. Henry M. Rosenthal, director of religious activities; and Nat Holman, director of the department of physical education.

The present 92nd Street institution is the founder organization of the Y.M.H.A. movement throughout the world, having been organized in 1874. Headquarters have been located during the past 56 years in six different buildings, two of which were given to the organization by the late Jacob H. Schiff. For the past two years, during the construction of the new building, the Association was housed in the building of the Young Women’s Hebrew Association. The Association started with a membership of twenty-four young men and now has provision for over 6,000. Recent past presidents of the Y.M.H.A. include Judge Samuel Greenbaum, Percival S. Menken, Felix M. Warburg, Judge Irving Lehman and Sol M. Stroock.