Seal of Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No.586, designed by Pon DeCaro.
Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586 history: how six New York lodges, from Grand Street to Flushing to Astoria, became one.
Start Here · Series Hub · Timeline · Previous Article: None, Series Opening · Next Article: Start Here · Related Directory: ASM 586 Members · Related Member Profiles: Lovell, Torrey, Hanzlik
On the first and third Wednesdays of each month, a lodge meets in Astoria whose ancestors met in a great many other places. A hall on Grand Street in lower Manhattan. A Flushing temple built by a different lodge. A building on Jackson Avenue in Long Island City that the federal courthouse began renting in 1934 and was renting entirely by 1938. An Elmhurst temple that was later sold to a church.
That lodge is Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586, and its story is the story of six New York lodges: City No. 408, Island City No. 586, Advance No. 635, Mizpah No. 738, Geba No. 954, and Service No. 1009.
They were chartered between 1856 and 1923, and between 1973 and 2018 they folded into one another in five consolidations. This page is the hub of One Lodge, Six Charters. It sketches the whole inheritance and points toward the longer pieces.
What the Lodge Is Today
Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586 is a Masonic lodge under the Grand Lodge of New York. A lodge, in plain terms, is the local unit of Freemasonry: a body of members, a charter from the Grand Lodge, and a room to meet in. This one meets in Astoria, the neighborhood whose first Masonic lodge, Advance, was chartered in 1867.
The name works as a roll call. Advance, Service, and Mizpah are three of the six lodges. The number, 586, belongs to a fourth, Island City. City and Geba do not appear on the sign, though both are in the line.
The Six Lodges Behind the Present Lodge
A charter is the Grand Lodge’s written permission for a group of Masons to meet and work as a lodge. Each of the six held one. The charter dates used here follow the Grand Lodge records identified for this project.
City Lodge No. 408, Manhattan, was chartered on September 1, 1856. It met at the old Odd Fellows Hall, 165–171 Grand Street, between Centre and Baxter Streets, on ground now associated with Little Italy and SoHo. It is the oldest charter in the line and the only one from Manhattan.
Island City Lodge No. 586, Long Island City, was chartered on June 18, 1866. Its temple on Jackson Avenue, dedicated in 1907, was a distinctive building. Its number is the one the lineage carries today.
Advance Lodge No. 635, Astoria, was chartered on July 2, 1867, as Astoria’s first Masonic lodge. It took its name from the USS Advance and built the temple at 21-14 30th Avenue, which still stands.
Mizpah Lodge No. 738, Newtown and Elmhurst, was chartered on June 20, 1873, in Newtown, the village that became Elmhurst. It laid the cornerstone of a temple there on January 1, 1920, and dedicated it in 1921.
Geba Lodge No. 954 was chartered on May 7, 1919, on Mizpah Lodge’s proposal. Geba first met in rented rooms in Jackson Heights and moved into Mizpah’s temple in its early days. By the late 1970s it was still meeting there, alongside Service City Lodge.
Service Lodge No. 1009, Flushing, was chartered on May 3, 1923. It met at the Flushing Temple, 137-70 Northern Boulevard near Union Avenue, a building built and run by Cornucopia Lodge No. 563.
Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586 History in Five Mergers
A consolidation is the merger of two or more lodges into one, under a combined name and a single number. The line runs on two tracks.
The first track gathers Manhattan, Flushing, and Geba. In 1973, City Lodge No. 408 consolidated with Service Lodge No. 1009 to form Service City Lodge No. 1009. In 1982, Geba Lodge No. 954 joined to make Service City Geba Lodge No. 1009.
The second track belongs to western Queens. Island City and Mizpah had shared Mizpah Temple since 1938, and in 1987 they consolidated as Island City Mizpah Lodge No. 738, keeping Mizpah’s number.
In 1993 that lodge consolidated with Advance at Advance Masonic Temple. The combined lodge took the name Advance Island City Mizpah and the number 586, chosen to commemorate the oldest Queens lodge in the lineage.
The tracks met in 2018, when Service City Geba Lodge No. 1009 consolidated with Advance Island City Mizpah Lodge No. 586 to form Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586.
Consolidation can look like retreat. It can also be a way of keeping a charter’s years in play. When lodges combine, their membership and history continue within the resulting lodge under a new name.
Timeline at a Glance
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1856 | City Lodge No. 408 chartered, Manhattan |
| 1866 | Island City Lodge No. 586 chartered, Long Island City |
| 1867 | Advance Lodge No. 635 chartered, Astoria |
| 1873 | Mizpah Lodge No. 738 chartered, Newtown |
| 1919 | Geba Lodge No. 954 chartered |
| 1923 | Service Lodge No. 1009 chartered, Flushing |
| 1973 | City and Service consolidate as Service City Lodge No. 1009 |
| 1982 | Geba joins, forming Service City Geba Lodge No. 1009 |
| 1987 | Island City and Mizpah consolidate as Island City Mizpah Lodge No. 738 |
| 1993 | Advance joins, forming Advance Island City Mizpah Lodge No. 586 |
| 2018 | Final consolidation forms Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586 |
The full account of each step is in the Merger History. The dated entries, with the buildings and moves, are in the Timeline.
The Buildings That Carried the Lineage
Island City built a distinctive temple. Its cornerstone went down on September 8, 1906, on Jackson Avenue near Anable Avenue, in what was then called the old City Hall block. The temple was finished in 1907, and Grand Master Townsend Scudder dedicated it on May 10 of that year.
The first floor was let to commercial tenants, the lodge room sat on the second floor, and the basement held a kitchen and a bowling alley. The commercial floor suggests that rent helped carry the building.
It stood near the Queens County Federal Court Building. The courthouse began renting the ground floor in 1934, and in 1938 it rented the entire building, which forced the lodge to move its meetings to Mizpah’s temple. The lodge eventually sold the building to the federal government. It still stands on Jackson Avenue as a commercial rental. An organ was installed in the temple in 1922.
The Island City history follows that building’s place in the lodge’s life.
Mizpah laid its Elmhurst cornerstone on January 1, 1920, and dedicated the temple on March 17, 1921, by which time Newtown had become Elmhurst. The location was central enough that the temple became home to many Queens lodges.
Island City began meeting there in 1938. Geba had been there since its early days, and by the late 1970s Service City met there too. The building was later sold to a church, and it still stands.
The Mizpah history follows the lodge and the meeting place that connected several branches of this lineage before they consolidated.
In Flushing, Service Lodge met at the Flushing Temple at 137-70 Northern Boulevard, near Union Avenue. Cornucopia Lodge No. 563 built and ran it, so Service met in a building that belonged to another lodge’s work.
In Manhattan, City Lodge met in the Odd Fellows Hall on Grand Street, another fraternity’s building by name.
Advance laid its cornerstone on November 20, 1915, for a temple at 21-14 30th Avenue in Astoria. It still stands and still serves as a lodge building. In 1993 it became home to the merged Advance Island City Mizpah Lodge, and it is home now to Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586.
A Cornerstone, a Dinner, and a Borough in a Hurry places Advance’s building ceremony in the borough around it.
The Geography Linking Manhattan and Queens
Put the charters on a map and they reach from Manhattan into Queens. Grand Street in 1856. Long Island City in 1866, across the East River. Astoria in 1867. Newtown in 1873. Jackson Heights and Elmhurst with Geba in 1919. Flushing with Service in 1923.
The records show where the lodges met, not why they chose each place.
Long Island City is the easiest place to see the connection between a lodge and its surroundings. It was an independent city until 1898, which explains the old City Hall block where Island City built. The lodge’s building stood close enough to the federal courthouse that the courthouse began renting its ground floor in 1934.
Newtown changed names more slowly. Mizpah was chartered there in 1873, and by 1920 the community was Elmhurst, the name its temple went up under.
The mergers did not retrace that route so much as collect it. Manhattan and Flushing came together in 1973. Western Queens, Elmhurst, and Astoria came together in 1987 and 1993. By 2018 the whole line met in Astoria, where Advance had been chartered in 1867 as the neighborhood’s first lodge.
From Manhattan to Astoria: The Geography of a Lodge Lineage follows those places in greater detail.
One Lodge, Six Paper Trails
For anyone tracing a family, the lineage works as a map. A great-grandfather’s lodge may turn up in an old record under a name that no longer exists, and the next question is which lodge stands in its place.
In this line the answer follows the mergers. Geba’s institutional history continues through Service City Geba after 1982 and Advance Service Mizpah after 2018.
The chain is short enough to hold in your head and long enough to need a diagram, which is why the series includes a Lodge Family Tree.
The master member directory provides another entrance, connecting names with their lodge affiliations and the individual directories.
For local history, the lodges are a record of what neighbors built for themselves. Island City rented its ground floor to commercial tenants and put a bowling alley in its basement. Mizpah built where Elmhurst was becoming central. Advance took its name from an Arctic exploring ship.
None of that comes from the ritual. It comes from the buildings and the names.
Where to Go Next
Begin with Start Here for a guide to reading the series, or go directly to the Merger History for the five consolidations in full. The Timeline puts the charters, buildings, and moves in date order.
For an individual lodge, follow City, Island City, Advance, Mizpah, Geba, or Service through the histories linked above. For a place, begin with the Island City temple, Mizpah’s Elmhurst home, Advance’s Astoria temple, or the Flushing Temple.
The member features put people beside those institutions. James D. Torrey and Caleb G. Francis held offices at Advance’s founding. John I. Lovell appears in its later story. Anthony “Speed” Hanzlik connects the lodge to the history of Flushing Airport.
The Present Lodge as Steward of the Whole Inheritance
The lodge that meets in Astoria on the first and third Wednesdays carries the inheritance of six lodges, the oldest chartered before the Civil War. It meets in a temple whose cornerstone went down on November 20, 1915. Its number came from Long Island City. The three names on its sign came from the Astoria, Flushing, and Newtown and Elmhurst branches.
City and Geba remain in the history even though their names no longer appear in the title. The lodge room is in Astoria. The inheritance reaches back to Grand Street.
Sources and Notes
Grand Lodge Records
Charter dates, consolidation years, and lodge numbers follow the Grand Lodge of New York records identified for this project.
[Before publication: add the proceedings volumes and page references actually used.]
Buildings and Meeting Places
Building histories and meeting-place details are developed in the linked lodge and building articles.
[Before publication: add the lodge histories, anniversary programs, newspaper notices, and other sources actually used for the details summarized here. Confirm the current meeting schedule and present-day building uses.]
Note 1: Dates and Lodge Numbers
Some earlier working notes gave 1925 for the chartering of Service Lodge No. 1009, June 21 for Mizpah Lodge No. 738, 1865 for Island City Lodge No. 586, and No. 783 for the lodge formed in 1987.
The Grand Lodge chronology used in this series gives May 3, 1923, for Service; June 20, 1873, for Mizpah; and June 18, 1866, for Island City’s charter, following its dispensation on June 18, 1865.
Island City Mizpah Lodge retained Mizpah’s No. 738 after the 1987 consolidation. The 1993 consolidation with Advance adopted No. 586 to commemorate Island City, the oldest Queens lodge in the lineage. City Lodge, chartered in Manhattan in 1856, is the oldest of the six lodges overall.
The consolidations are given by year throughout: 1973, 1982, 1987, 1993, and 2018.
Start Here · Series Hub · Timeline · Previous Article: None, Series Opening · Next Article: Start Here · Related Directory: ASM 586 Members · Related Member Profiles: Lovell, Torrey, Hanzlik
Related Reading
- One Lodge, Six Charters: Start Here
- The Merger History of Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586
- Timeline of the Lodges That Formed Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586
- The Lodge Family Tree of Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586
- From Manhattan to Astoria: The Geography of a Lodge Lineage
- Why Advance Lodge Named Itself After the USS Advance
