In the 134 years since a splinter group of European-born Orthodox Jews built the city’s first synagogue in downtown Washington, it has been turned over to three congregations; converted into a grocery store and a barbecue joint; slated for demolition, saved and dubbed a historic landmark; literally cut in half and torn from its foundation; and moved, inch by inch, to Third Street NW, where it was renovated and reopened as a museum in an area that has followed the city’s economic fortunes from blighted to prosperous to recession.

And now the Lillian and Albert Small Jewish Museum needs to be moved again — twice — for one more tiring and costly journey to enable three prime blocks, as if a miracle, to be added to downtown’s buildable area. The New York-based Louis Dreyfus Property Group struck an agreement this spring with the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington to help move the building so a deck can be added above an entrance to Interstate 395 south of Massachusetts Avenue NW, with high-rises and greenery where there is now only a recessed highway. Read more at www.washingtonpost.com