Dropsie University Complex

Built in the early twentieth century in North Philadelphia, the Dropsie University complex on Broad Street combines a two-story main building of steel and limestone with a 1909 annex, enlarged in 1914, and the Mikveh Israel Synagogue, also designed by Lewis F. Pilcher and W.G. Tachau. The main building has seven high semicircular openings on its front, Corinthian keystones and paired Greek columns, and a balustraded parapet. The annex first housed Gratz College, which trained secondary school teachers of Hebrew; Gratz relocated in 1951 and the building was then acquired by Dropsie. Dropsie was founded through the 1907 will of Moses Aaron Dropsie and opened in 1909 as a postgraduate institution devoted to Jewish and related studies. Its library holds Cairo Genizah fragments, cuneiform tablets and Assyrian seals, and graduates include Eleazar Sukenik, who discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls. The complex is regarded as a fine example of Beaux Arts and Renaissance Revival design in early twentieth-century Philadelphia.