Satmar Hasidic Sect Hopes to Buy Huge Armory in Brooklyn

The late-19th-century National Guard armory in Williamsburg, a 165,000-square-foot brick fortress with crenelated towers at the corners, has been empty for two years, and is now used mostly for film shoots.

But in a Brooklyn neighborhood where a real estate rush is fueled by both gentrification and a fast-growing Hasidic community, the Satmar sect is eyeing the building as a possible solution not only to the perennial space crunch in its schools and synagogues, but also to a bitter schism that has divided the community in two.

The Satmar Hasidim, the dominant sect in Williamsburg, consider the 3.2-acre, square-block site an ideal location for a large school, along with housing and a community hall. And the building is now for sale: The Empire State Development Corporation, a state authority, plans soon to put out a request for proposals for the site, which is known both as the 47th Regiment Armory and as the Marcy Avenue Armory.

While the state authority has said it hopes to spur a “a competitive process” and capture “the best value for New York State taxpayers,” it also plans to require in its request for proposals that the site be used to benefit “the needs and priorities of the local community,” potentially giving an edge to the Satmar Hasidim — an important voting bloc increasingly courted by politicians.

“We’re looking forward to getting the R.F.P. and trying to come up with the best price we can afford,” said Rabbi Chaim Mandel, the business administrator for United Talmudical Academy, a large, ultra-Orthodox day school whose operations now are spread across 15 buildings.

The Satmar community is so fast-growing that it is desperate for space — for classrooms, worship services, wedding halls and other social functions.

The armory closed in 2011, after the federal government called for a consolidation of military installations, and since then the Satmars have occasionally used the building for teeming celebrations on the anniversary of the day in 1944 that the founder of the sect in America, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, escaped Nazi-occupied Hungary. The two factions of the community, unable to work together because of rival dynastic claims, have alternated use of the building: In 2011, a group called the Zaloynim celebrated there, with 10,000 people filling the cavernous 60,000-square-foot drill hall, and last December it was the turn of the other group, called the Aroynem.

According to articles in news outlets for the ultra-Orthodox, Satmar leaders have been discussing their desire to buy the building with an Orthodox businessman, Abraham Eisner, who in the past has served as a campaign liaison to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. Mr. Eisner did not return several calls seeking to discuss his role, but it would be a complicated one — the Satmar division over leadership has spilled over to the financial realm and now includes disputes over millions of dollars in property, including two synagogue buildings, four upstate summer camps, cemeteries and even a matzo bakery.

 

 

 

Read more at: NY Times