By Brete Murphy · November 10, 2026
A Manhattan lodge, three institutions from the older Queens communities and two lodges of the early twentieth-century expansion: the histories behind Advance Service Mizpah reveal different stages in the borough’s development. Their later consolidations brought those branches together in Astoria.
← The Seven Lodges: Complete Series Guide · Start Here: The Queens District’s Seven Lodges · Connecting Stories →
Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586 meets in the Advance Masonic Temple at 21-14 30th Avenue in Astoria.
Its name preserves several earlier identities. Its number came from Island City Lodge in Long Island City. Other institutions stand behind the present lodge without appearing in its title.
Together, the six constituent histories offer three different views of Queens.
City began in Manhattan.
Island City, Advance and Mizpah belonged to communities that established lodges before Queens became part of New York City.
Geba and Service came later, during the borough’s early twentieth-century expansion.
Read in order of their beginnings, those histories trace different settings in which people organized a lodge.
Read in order of consolidation, they describe two institutional branches eventually brought together in Astoria.
The chronology is clear enough to follow. The reasons behind every move and consolidation are not equally well documented.
That distinction is part of the story.
The Manhattan Beginning: City Lodge
The oldest constituent charter in the author’s compilation belongs to City Lodge No. 408, chartered on September 1, 1856.
Its early meeting places included Florence Hall and Odd Fellows’ Hall on Grand Street.
Later addresses form part of the shared Manhattan geography encountered elsewhere in this project. Metropolitan Lodge No. 273 also appears in connection with Odd Fellows’ Hall and 594 Broadway.
Those shared addresses do not establish simultaneous occupancy of the same room. They show how separate lodge histories can pass through the same urban buildings.
City’s members included the lawyer Abram J. Dittenhoefer.
The surviving institutional record eventually brings City to a Queens consolidation. In 1973, it joined Service Lodge No. 1009, a Flushing institution, as Service City.
The reason for that particular pairing remains unresolved.
The consolidation does not, by itself, establish where City’s members had moved, why they selected Service or whether a meeting-place change preceded the formal union.
It does establish an institutional connection across the river.
A Manhattan lodge’s history became part of a combined body associated with Flushing and, through later consolidations, Astoria.[1]
Read City Lodge No. 408: A Manhattan Connection →
Three Lodges in the Older Queens Communities
The next three constituent histories began before the 1898 consolidation of New York City.
They belong to different local settings rather than one undifferentiated “old Queens.”
Island City: A Riverfront Institution
Island City Lodge No. 586 was chartered on June 18, 1866, in Hunters Point, according to the author’s Grand Lodge compilation.
Its history belongs to the waterfront community that became part of Long Island City.
In September 1906, the lodge laid the cornerstone of a temple on Jackson Avenue. Grand Master Townsend Scudder dedicated the building in 1907.
The building’s later history connects lodge property with federal use.
The author’s research identifies a federal courthouse tenancy beginning on the ground floor in 1934 and extending to the whole building by 1938.
Island City moved its meetings to Elmhurst. The property was later sold to the federal government, although the exact sale date still needs to be established.
That sequence should not be described simply as the government taking the lodge’s home.
The available account describes tenancy, relocation and a later sale. The agreements, financial circumstances and decision-making require their own records.[2]
Advance: A Home in Astoria
Advance Lodge No. 635 was chartered in 1867.
Its history describes decades in rented rooms before the construction of its Grand Avenue temple in 1915–1916.
Grand Avenue became 30th Avenue. The building remained.
The temple provided more than a lodge room. Its other spaces accommodated entertainments, gatherings and additional occupants.
Advance’s records also preserve a professional connection with Hillside in Woodhaven: Arthur E. Wenige’s firm supplied lodge-room blueprints previously used there.
The building’s continued Masonic use is significant. The precise reasons it remained viable, however, cannot be reduced to its room arrangement without accounts and management records.
Shared use is documented. Its financial effect still requires investigation.[3]
Read the Advance Temple-Building Story →
Mizpah: Newtown and Elmhurst
Mizpah Lodge No. 738 received its charter on June 20, 1873, according to the supplied record.
Its early identity belongs to Newtown, later represented in the project through Elmhurst’s history.
The temple at 87-11 Whitney Avenue followed much later. The author’s research dates the cornerstone to 1920 and the dedication to 1921.
The street was then known as Warner Avenue.
The account identifies the architect as a Past Master of the lodge. That connection places professional work within the institution’s own membership, a pattern also encountered at Advance and Bayside.
Island City later shared the Elmhurst temple with Mizpah.
Their occupancy history and eventual consolidation are related events, but not the same event.[4]
Read Garret J. Garretson, Mizpah’s First Master →
What the Three Buildings Show
Island City, Advance and Mizpah all eventually obtained temples of their own.
The author’s building research identifies later non-Masonic uses for Island City’s and Mizpah’s properties, while Advance’s remains in Masonic use.
That is a useful comparison, but not a complete explanation.
A change of use can involve a sale, a tenancy, relocation or alteration. The continued use of another building can depend on ownership, income, maintenance and decisions that require separate evidence.
The physical histories should therefore be followed alongside the lodge histories rather than treated as illustrations of a single inevitable outcome.
A building can remain while its original occupant leaves.
A lodge can continue after selling its building.
Advance Service Mizpah’s lineage contains both kinds of continuity.
Two Later Lodges: Geba and Service
The final two constituent beginnings belong to the early twentieth century.
Geba: An Elmhurst Connection
The author’s Grand Lodge compilation gives Geba Lodge No. 954 a charter date of May 7, 1919.
Its early history includes Mizpah’s support and meeting-place connections in Elmhurst and Jackson Heights.
The exact Jackson Heights address and the sequence of its move into Mizpah’s temple remain unresolved in the present research.
Those gaps should not be filled by treating every locality mentioned in a notice as a regular meeting address.
Named members provide another route into Geba’s history.
The supplied research identifies its first Master, Dr. Samuel A. Lando, and later members including David Kaplan, Dudley D. Schoenfeld and Don Rickles.
Their biographies can establish particular connections and occupations.
A selected list does not, by itself, establish the religious composition or social character of the entire membership.
Geba also appears in the connecting-stories series through Edward J. Smith and the Tadmor delegation associated with its June 1919 institution.[5]
Read Edward J. Smith: Mr. Mason of Queens →
Service: A Lodge in Another Lodge’s Temple
Service Lodge No. 1009 was chartered in Flushing on May 3, 1923, according to the supplied Grand Lodge record.
It met in Cornucopia’s Northern Boulevard temple.
Its beginning therefore offers a different building relationship from those of Island City, Advance and Mizpah.
Service could conduct its work without first constructing a temple of its own.
Cornucopia’s building supplied space for another institution while the lodges retained their separate identities.
That arrangement belongs to the wider history of shared rooms explored throughout the project.[1]
Read Cornucopia Lodge No. 563 →
Two Branches Come Together
The consolidation sequence gives the lineage its later structure.
| Year | Institutional change |
|---|---|
| 1973 | City and Service combined as Service City |
| 1982 | Geba joined Service City |
| 1987 | Island City and Mizpah combined as Island City Mizpah |
| 1993 | Island City Mizpah joined Advance |
| 2018 | Service City Geba joined the combined Advance line |
These years follow the author’s Grand Lodge compilation. Exact dates and formal names should be taken from the controlling records when reproducing the full merger history.
The sequence forms two branches.
One gathered City, Service and Geba.
The other brought Island City and Mizpah together before their consolidation with Advance.
The branches met in 2018.
Membership change, residential movement, finances and property costs are possible subjects for explaining those decisions. They should not be assigned as the causes of every consolidation without the relevant minutes, returns and accounts.
The chronology establishes what combined.
The reasons require closer work.[1]
A Number From Long Island City
The present lodge retains No. 586, Island City’s number.
The author’s lodge history explains the 1993 choice as recognition of the oldest Queens charter within that combined branch.
That wording matters.
City’s 1856 Manhattan charter predates Island City’s. The retained number should not be described as belonging to the oldest constituent lodge in the complete present-day line.
The choice concerns a particular consolidation and a particular way of recognizing its inheritance.
The building is Advance’s Astoria home.
The number came from Island City.
The present name preserves several identities while other constituent names remain in the history rather than on the meeting notice.
No single element represents the whole lineage.
What These Six Histories Reveal
Three things emerge from the comparison.
First, the beginnings were different.
City was a Manhattan institution. Island City, Advance and Mizpah arose in established Queens communities. Geba and Service began during a later period of lodge organization.
Second, the building histories do not follow one pattern.
Some lodges built temples. Service used another lodge’s building. Island City relocated before consolidating with its host. Advance’s temple continued to accommodate Masonic work.
Third, consolidation preserved connections without preserving every name in equal view.
A member seeing “Advance Service Mizpah No. 586” encounters only part of the institutional record.
City and Geba remain part of that history. Island City survives conspicuously in the number.
The lineage is not a claim that six lodges always formed one natural unit.
It is the record of the decisions that eventually brought them together.
Read the Lineage Across the Other Series
The connecting articles show where this institutional history reaches beyond itself.
Wenige’s room plan links Advance with Hillside, whose later line belongs to Springfield Gardens.
Astoria Lodge’s founding connects Advance’s members and building with Anchor-Astoria.
Service’s Flushing meeting place connects the lineage with Cornucopia.
Smith’s ceremonial work links Geba’s beginnings with Tadmor and other lodges.
These relationships are not additional consolidations.
They show how separate institutions worked within a wider network.
Explore Connecting Stories Across the Queens District’s Seven Lodges →
Endnotes
1. Charter and Consolidation Records
The Merger History of Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586 and its underlying Grand Lodge of New York records, as compiled by Brete Murphy.
Supplies the constituent charter dates and consolidation sequence used here.
Exact record references should be retained in the complete merger-history article.
The year-only consolidation table does not replace the formal dates, names and terms in those records.
The explanation of the retained No. 586 follows the author’s lodge history.
2. Island City Lodge and Temple
- Brooklyn Eagle, September 8, 1906.
- Island City Lodge, “Highlights in History of Island City,” 1941.
- Brete Murphy’s research notes on federal tenancy, relocation and sale.
Support the cornerstone, dedication and later building-use sequence.
The final sale date remains unresolved.
The article does not characterize the property change as a forced loss without supporting evidence.
3. Advance Lodge and Temple
Advance Lodge and Advance Masonic Temple research supplied by the author.
Henry Martin, “Historical Data of Advance Lodge,” cornerstone address, 1915.
See:
The supplied drafts differ between July 2 and July 3, 1867, for Advance’s charter date. This essay uses the year pending reconciliation.
The shared-blueprint account concerns the lodge room, not proof that the entire Hillside and Advance buildings were identical.
4. Mizpah Lodge and Temple
- New York Times, December 31, 1919.
- Mizpah’s 1973 centennial history.
- The author’s Mizpah and temple research.
Support the building chronology, address history and architectural connection.
Island City’s occupancy and the later formal consolidation are treated as distinct events.
5. Geba Lodge
The author’s Geba research and cited sources, including:
- New York Times, June 1919.
- New York Times, December 1964.
- Geba membership information concerning Don Rickles.
Full article dates, pages and register references should be added to the final source file.
The selected names establish individual affiliations, not the demographic composition of the lodge.
The early Jackson Heights meeting-place chronology remains unresolved.
6. Scope of the Lineage Essay
This article interprets six constituent histories within one present Queens District lodge.
It does not present six separate currently active warrants.
The three-part grouping—Manhattan, older Queens communities and later lodge organization—is an editorial framework for comparing their beginnings.
The article does not infer member migration, consolidation motives or building viability from chronology alone.
Questions for Further Research
- Why did City and Service choose consolidation in 1973?
- Where did Service City meet afterward?
- What was Geba’s Jackson Heights address?
- When did Geba begin meeting in Mizpah’s temple?
- When did Island City sell its property to the federal government?
- What do membership returns show for each constituent lodge by decade?
- What do the consolidation resolutions say about names, numbers and meeting places?
- Which accounts explain the continued operation of Advance’s building?
Continue Through the Advance Service Mizpah Series
- Advance Service Mizpah: A Living Inheritance of Six New York Lodges
- Advance Lodge No. 635
- City Lodge No. 408
- Service Lodge No. 1009
- Garret J. Garretson, Mizpah’s First Master
- Advance’s Temple-Building Story
Follow the Connections
- The Engineer’s Room: Advance, Hillside and Tadmor
- The Thirteen Who Left Advance
- Edward J. Smith: Mr. Mason of Queens
- The Tuesday Night Visitors: Cornucopia and Anchor
← The Seven Lodges: Complete Series Guide · Advance Service Mizpah: Main Feature · Connecting Stories →
The Seven Lodges: Start Here · The Lodges That Built Queens · Queens History Blog
