The Blue Tower (on site of former Tlomackie synagogue)
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The Bank (or Blue) Tower on Plac Bankowy (Bank Square) stands on the site of the Great Synagogue. This was was blown up by SS General Jürgen Stroop at 20:15 on 16th May 1943 to mark the defeat of the Ghetto Uprising. Only a fragment of a stone column and a cloakroom ticket survive.
A competition to design the Great Synagogue was held in 1872, but all the proposed plans were rejected. Eventually the architect Leandro Marconi (who came from a family of architects, one of whom had designed the Pawiak prison) was given the commission. The synagogue could accommodate 3,000 people. It had a large hall, cloakrooms and meeting rooms, and contained an archive, a library and a school. It was completed in 1878. The surviving library building behind the Bank Tower was built in 1928-1936 and now houses the Jewish Historical Institute (ZIH). In 1942 the last Jews from Germany to arrive in Warsaw were placed in the Great Synagogue, which was then outside the ghetto.
Photographs show the synagogue facing roughly north onto Tlomackie Street, though A Guide to Jewish Warsaw says that it faced the present entrance to ZIH (i.e. roughly east).
The Blue Tower was finally completed in 1993, using the framework of a building that had stood unfinished for over 25 years. The more superstitious Varsovians believed the site to have been cursed by the last rabbi.
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The Great Synagogue