Yeshivas Oholei Torah in Crown Heights is turning a building Ford Motor Company put up in 1916 as a showroom into a new campus for its bais medrash, and a former talmid now working at Ford helped find the original drawings. The plans had been sitting in the Ford Motor Company Archives for more than a century, Matzav, CrownHeights.info and Anash.org reported.
The building is 402 Eastern Parkway, at the corner of Bedford Avenue, about three blocks from the yeshiva's main campus and a short walk from 770. After its years with Ford, the city's Department of Education rented it for about 40 years as a public school.
Seventy years, and out of room
Oholei Torah was founded in 1956 by Rabbi Michoel Teitelbaum and Reb Dovid Deitsch at the direction of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. It began with a handful of boys in a Brownsville shul. A kindergarten came in 1958, a junior high in 1964, then a mesivta, and in 1970 the bais medrash. In 1982 the yeshiva bought the former Brooklyn Jewish Center at 667 Eastern Parkway, which is still its main campus.
This is the yeshiva's 70th year. The New York Real Estate Journal reported that it serves about 2,050 students, from pre-K through bais medrash. Yeshiva World News reported that students come from 46 countries.
The bais medrash is where the squeeze is worst. There are 540 talmidim this year, 75 more than last year, and more than 100 applicants were turned away. Menahel klali Rabbi Yehoshua Lustig told Yeshiva World News that fitting everyone in had become a game of Tetris.
In June the yeshiva announced it had bought 402 Eastern Parkway for $16 million. The four-story building has about 58,000 square feet, and zoning allows it to grow to about 80,000. Moving the bais medrash out will free space at 667 for early childhood programs and the younger grades.
"Space alone does not create a great yeshiva. People do," rosh mosad Rabbi Mendel Blau told Yeshiva World News.
A call to Dearborn
Before designing the renovation, engineers needed to know how the building was put together. The yeshiva hired a firm to search Department of Buildings records. It found some papers, but not the original plans. The School Construction Authority sent drawings from later renovations, but those did not include the original structural plans either.
At a planning meeting, Rabbi Blau remembered that a classmate from his own bais medrash years, Shlomo Kleinman, works for Ford in Dearborn, Michigan. Since Ford had built the place, its archives might have the plans. Rabbi Lustig called Kleinman, who asked Leslie Armbruster of the Ford Motor Company Archives to look. She found the original plans.
"I have such great memories of my years in Oholei Torah Beis Medrash," Kleinman told CrownHeights.info.
Armbruster said she was glad the find saved the yeshiva time and money. Rabbi Lustig thanked Ford, its archive and Kleinman for helping move the yeshiva closer to opening the new campus.
What the drawings save
Yiddi Nussensweig of New York Major, the yeshiva's owner's representative and contractor, estimates the plans will save about $200,000 and six to eight weeks of investigative work. Some scanning, probing and testing is still needed, but much less of it. The architect is FMA, a firm that has designed other yeshivos.
The plans call for three large batei medrash, a mikvah, classrooms, rooms for the mashpiim, a Torah library, a student lounge, and a kitchen and dining room. Design work is expected to take about four more months. The yeshiva is aiming to open the campus for the 5789 school year, and the bais medrash stays at 667 until the new building is ready.
How we reported this: the account of the drawings comes from Matzav, CrownHeights.info and Anash.org reports published Oct. 21 and 22, 2026, drawn from the yeshiva's announcement. Purchase details come from Yeshiva World News, the New York Real Estate Journal and the yeshiva's own announcement. The building's Ford history comes from the yeshiva; we did not find an independent record of it. Yeshivos building new homes can reach us at [email protected].