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Construction began on the Sixth & I Street Historic Synagogue in
1906, after architect Louis Levi and builder Arthur Cowsill satisfied
District of Columbia engineers that the 45-foot span
reinforced concrete foundation – new technology for the time –
would hold the weight of the building committee, the engineers
and seventy two courses of heavy brick, and, by implication,
of the entire building.
Born in Baltimore in 1868, Levi was
a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate who designed
buildings primarily in Baltimore and Philadelphia, and whose
projects included the Shearith Israel Synagogue in Baltimore
and another in Lakewood, New Jersey. Cowsill, the builder,
also had a hand in many important
buildings in the District of Columbia, including Union Station
and the Old Post Office Building, as well as several hotels,
apartment houses and fine residences.
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