A $150m. Synagogue Renovation is Underway

from HollywoodReporter.com:

Hollywood’s Hottest $150 Million Project Is an 83-Year-Old Synagogue

There are a number of synagogues central to Jewish life at the loftiest reaches of the entertainment business – Temple Israel, Leo Baeck and Stephen S. Wise among them – but none has been as prominent for as long as Wilshire Boulevard Temple.

… Hollywood names are helping spearhead a multiyear, $150 million renovation, the first since its founding, of the temple’s domed sanctuary, which began to fail a few years ago after a 10-pound piece of plaster fell from the ceiling in the middle of the night.

(The work is set for completion in time for High Holiday services in 2013; in the fall, they will take place at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the site of quite a few Academy Awards ceremonies.) An expansion of the rest of the square-block campus is under way as well, backed by sizable gifts …

image courtesy Wilshire Boulevard Temple