But by the 1920s the congregation, as economically and geographically mobile as earlier immigrants, had dispersed far beyond the Lower East Side, and immigration quotas stemmed the tide of arrivals. By the 1950s a depleted but stalwart congregation could no longer afford the repairs needed to maintain the building, or even to heat its sanctuary, and met instead in the street level chapel.

In the 1970s and 1980s the congregation still prayed in the street-level chapel, but the building itself was in grave disrepair, with its foundations compromised, a leaky roof, and unsound structure. New York University Professor Gerard Wolfe and Benjamin Markowitz, the congregation's sexton, were the first to re-enter the sealed-off sanctuary. “I cannot forget how my hair stood up and goose pimples arose on my back… There was an immense brass chandelier hanging from the 50-foot ceiling with all its Victorian glass shades intact…Brass crowns adorned the light fixtures on the walls, whose motif doubtless represented one of the three crowns of Jewish tradition.” Pigeons roosted in the balcony, and dust blanketed the wood and painted surfaces, and the stained-glass windows were grime-coated.

Hoping to preserve and ultimately restore the building, the journalist and preservationist Roberta Brandes Gratz and attorney William Josephson incorporated the not-for-profit nonsectarian Eldridge Street Project in 1986. According to Gratz, "It was as though the synagogue was held up by strings to heaven." Under the auspices of Gratz and Josephson, The Project mounted the largest independent restoration not supported or attached to an institution or government agency in New York City. The Project's earliest supporters included J.M. Kaplan Fund, Joy Ungerleider Mayerson, and the Astor Foundation. In 1991, under the leadership of Amy E. Waterman, Executive Director of the Eldridge Street Project from 1991-2007, the Project launched educational and cultural programming alongside the ongoing restoration efforts. Waterman's leadership led to the creation of a dynamic cultural institution, which was renamed the Museum at Eldridge Street in 2008.

In 2007 the Eldridge Street Synagogue became once again the magnificent edifice that had greeted throngs of worshippers 120 years earlier. From Eldridge Street, visitors can survey the same cream façade that immigrants beheld on opening day; inside they can marvel at the fifty-foot barrel-vaulted ceiling, the richly hued stained-glass windows, and the majestic carved-walnut ark, still lined in its original crimson velvet. This restored synagogue is one of the last remaining – and arguably the best preserved – edifices built by the East European immigrants who made the Lower East Side the world’s largest Jewish city around 1900.

The synagogue’s history is perpetuated today in two separate but complementary ways. On the Sabbath and holidays, congregation members, who have, across the generations, never missed a Sabbath service, worship in the Orthodox tradition of their grandparents and great-grandparents. On Sundays and weekdays, the Museum at Eldridge Street explores the context of their worship, explaining to visitors of diverse ages and backgrounds how the immigrant founders and their children lived, worked and prayed on the Lower East Side.

This history is adapted from Dr. Annie Polland's acclaimed book, Landmark of the Spirit: The Eldridge Street Synagogue.