View from the Balcony is a site-specific project created for the Eldridge Street Synagogue, the first great house of worship built in America by Jews from Eastern Europe. A multi-media project about memory, it focuses on writing and photographs inspired by the landmark building. Its components are a video-sound installation which was displayed from June 2000 through December 2003, an integrated website, and site-specific events for gathering stories and memories that are subsequently integrated into the View from the Balcony website.

The gesture of mending is the central motif of the audio-video presentation, which occupied a hollowed-out stairwell shaft in the landmark building. Sewing is a traditional female task, and acts as a metaphor related to rifts and healing. As female congregants, seated in the balcony, were separated from the men in the sanctuary below them, so were the immigrants to America separated from their countries and languages of origin. For demographic, sociological and spiritual reasons, much of the American Jewish community has lost contact with European traditions; and today's Eastern European Jewish community is quite small, as a result of the Holocaust and years under the Soviet system.

The sanctuary of the Eldridge Street Synagogue is no longer active but remains a vivid reminder of the rich immigrant history of the neighborhood. The Synagogue, with its grand architecture, is a place where the European traditions, threatened in the past century by anti-Semitism and assimilation, still have resonance. In its poignant, mid-restoration condition, the building is also a vivid reminder of the struggle between cultural continuity and change.

The artist's interaction with the physical space of the Synagogue reflects her personal links with its history. Ms. Iverson states, "I see the Synagogue as a vessel for healing wounded memories."

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