Alexander Saeltzer

Alexander Saeltzer (31 July 1814 Eisenach, of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, in the then German Confederation (Germany)— 23 September 1883 New York City, U.S.A.). Later journeyed across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas and was a German-American architect active in the United States in New York City during the 1850s and 1860s, before the American Civil War (1861-1865). His work includes the prominent Anshe Chesed Synagogue (now the Angel Orensanz Center), the Academy of Music (New York City), the Theatre Francais (New York),^[1] the Duncan, Sherman & Company building and the South Wing of the Romanesque revival style structure at 425 Lafayette Street in Manhattan, built between 1853 and 1881, to be later used as the Astor Library (which later merged with the Tilden and Lenox collections in 1895, to become the current New York Public Library).^[2][3]

Back in Europe, his father, Wilhelm Sältzer, was a brickyard owner, also an architect, and a member of the Grand Duke council of the grand duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach in the former Holy Roman Empire (c. A.D. 962-1806), then later the German Confederation of Central Europe to 1867. He also worked as the construction manager in the reconstruction / restoration of the famous Wartburg medieval castle, where Protestant / Evangelical Lutheranism reformer priest / theologian Martin Luther (1483-1546), was temporarily exiled and hidden during 1521-1522 in the 16th century era of the Protestant Reformation religious movement.

Alexander Saeltzer was born in Eisenach. He studied at the Berlin Bauakademie, in Berlin, then the royal capital city of the Kingdom of Prussia.^[4] and was a pupil of Karl Friedrich Schinkel.^[5] After graduating from the Bauakademie, moved to journey across the Atlantic to the U.S. from Berlin.