Two Weeks In: Manny Cantor Center at the Educational Alliance, Featured in The Lo-Down Mar. 11, 2014
It’s been a couple of weeks since the Educational Alliance opened the Manny Cantor Center inside its gut-renovated flagship building at 197 East Broadway. We stopped by yesterday for a progress check with Rabbi Joanna Samuels, the center’s executive director.
The $55 million project represents one of the biggest transformations ever undertaken by the 125-year old social services agency, one of the Lower East Side’s most venerable institutions. The Manny Cantor Center, named for the father of a former board chairman, includes a 7,000 square foot fitness center, a sun-splashed sixth floor community space, as well as facilities for preschool, Head Start, teen and senior programs and an art school. The lofty goal was to re-establish the historic building as a neighborhood hub in an economically mixed community.
