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Reimagining Eldridge Street
What are foam tables and crayon drawings doing scattered about a 112-year-old synagogue on the Lower East Side?
This unusual juxtaposition is the work of Ezra Shales, a 30-year-old Jewish artist whose latest installation was inspired in part by his own experience growing up in Manhattan's Morningside Heights neighborhood. He used to wander into the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Riverside Church, places in which he was very much a visitor. The churches weren't a part of his heritage, but "they were a part of the neighborhood," Mr. Shales said, "and I was sustained by that, nurtured by it."
With this exhibit, "A Common Denominator," Mr. Shales has provided a...