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In 1859, the Cary Avenue Baptist Church finished constructing a chapel at 16 Cary Avenue, which houses Temple Emmanuel’s Tudor Street meeting hall today. In 1872, the Cary Avenue Baptist Church erected an expansive addition to its 1859 chapel, which it moved to the back of the lot, fronting Tudor Street. Today, the newer Cary Avenue addition houses Temple Emmanuel’s sanctuary and the Jewish Chelsea Museum.
In 1904, the Cary Avenue Baptist Church sold its building to a Methodist Episcopal congregation in Chelsea. The Methodists left Cary Avenue in 1935 after selling the Church property to Congregation Beth El, a Jewish Chelsea synagogue. In 1939, Congregation Beth El re-named itself Temple Emmanuel of Chelsea, removed the Church’s steeple, and replaced the building’s wood front doors with steel and glass ones.
Temple Emmanuel’s building is undergoing a three-phase work-in-progress restoration. Phase one, completed in October 2023, restored the building’s slate roof, brick chimneys, and roof drainage system. Phase two will remove the aluminum and asphalt siding materials and insulation board, complete all carpentry repairs needed to make the building weathertight, and replicate or preserve the original architectural woodwork. Phase three will restore the window glazings, lights, muntin bars, decorative mullions, casements, sills, entrances’ masonry stairways, porches, cheek walls, and the foundation’s above-ground masonry.