Now this is my kind of shul

Up the block from my grandma's apartment building is the incognito shul. Of course, being a shul, it's still about the nicest looking building on the block. Some people just can't help themselves. Anyhoo, I was fairly worn-out with respect to shuls because they tend to come in two flavors- decrepit ones with old men desperate for fresh recruits (examples include West London and most anywhere else in Europe) and ludicrously huge and affluent ones where the convo centers on who gave the most moolah to the renovation fund and where my perpetually hard-up self was as welcome as camel spit. But this place breaks new ground. Neither on the verge of bankruptcy nor filled with paper millionaires, they gather in European fashion to discuss myriad non shul related things and wrap up services in forty minutes. Head covering is optional. Pork chops may be purchased on premises.