Within, near the entrance, are memorial tablets to Dr.Leo Merzbacher, first Rabbi, 1845-56, and to his successors, Dr.Samuel Adler (father of Felix Adler), 1857-74, and Dr.Gustav Gottheil, 1873-1903.

The present Rabbi is the Rev.Joseph Silverman.
Back from the Avenue, on the west side, between Forty-third and Forty-fourth Streets, there once stood the Coloured Orphan Asylum.

It was a square four-story building, occupying almost the entire block, and there was a garden in front extending to the road.

The Asylum, which was under the management of the Association for the Benefit of Coloured Orphans, organized in 1836 by a number of prominent New York women, received from the city in 1842 a grant of twenty-two lots and erected the building in which the children were housed and taught trades.

In the summer of 1863 there were between two hundred and two hundred and fifty children in the institution.