By Brete Murphy · November 9, 2026
According to Advance Lodge’s records, its Astoria lodge room was built from blueprints previously used at Hillside in Woodhaven. Arthur E. Wenige, a member of both lodges, supplied the connection. The Astoria room remains in Masonic use; the condition of its Woodhaven counterpart is less certain.
← Part 5: Bayside’s Bell Boulevard Temple · The 273 Line: Start Here · Part 7: Francis Lewis Lodge and Brandeis →
The lodge room of the Advance Masonic Temple in Astoria began, according to Advance Lodge’s records, with a room drawn for somewhere else.
The earlier room belonged to Hillside Lodge No. 894 in Woodhaven.
When Advance needed plans for its own building, the architectural firm of one of its members, Arthur E. Wenige, supplied the connection. The lodge’s building history states that the firm provided the same lodge-room blueprints previously used at Hillside.
Two Queens temples, one room plan.
The Woodhaven building later became a church. The Astoria building remains a Masonic temple, and its lodge room continues to serve the organizations that meet there.
The story belongs beside the Francis Lewis series rather than inside its institutional family tree. It follows a different kind of connection: not a charter carried through consolidation, but a set of drawings carried from one building project to another.
The Architect Was Already a Brother
Advance Lodge’s membership record identifies Arthur E. Wenige as its 294th member.
He was raised a Master Mason on December 15, 1903, at the age of twenty-six.
He practiced in the architectural partnership Wenige & Nelson and later affiliated with Hillside Lodge No. 894, according to the lodge information assembled by the author.
That placed him within both institutions connected by the room plan.
His architectural training, the identity of his partner and the wider work of the firm remain to be assembled. The records used here establish a narrower story: his membership, his connection to Hillside and his firm’s role in Advance’s building project.
It is enough to explain how the drawings reached Astoria without turning the article into a complete professional biography.
Explore Advance Lodge No. 635: Lodge History →
A Favor in Blueprints
Advance’s building history describes difficulty finding an architect as the lodge prepared to build in 1915.
According to that account, Wenige’s firm assisted as a favor to the lodge, arranging prints at a reasonable rate and supplying the lodge-room blueprints already used at Hillside.
Those details should be kept distinct.
The record describes favorable terms for the prints and the reuse of a particular room plan. It does not establish that every architectural service for the entire temple was donated, nor that the two buildings shared identical exterior designs or floor plans.
The claim concerns the lodge room.
That distinction makes the connection more precise, not less interesting. A room devised for one body of Masons became the starting point for another lodge’s new home.
The drawings crossed Queens through a brother who belonged to both places.
Grand Avenue Becomes a Building Site
Advance laid its cornerstone on Grand Avenue, now 30th Avenue, on November 20, 1915.
The three-story temple was dedicated on November 14, 1916.
According to the lodge’s dedication record, Past Grand Master Townsend Scudder performed the ceremony on behalf of Grand Master Thomas C. Penny, using the traditional corn, wine and oil.
The building was a larger undertaking than the acquisition of a room plan.
It required a site, financing, trustees, committees, construction and the continuing work of preparing a home for the lodge.
Among the men associated with that work was Joseph Gelson, a Past Master and trustee whom Advance’s records identify as chairman of the Committee of Eleven.
The architect’s contribution and the trustees’ responsibilities were different parts of the same undertaking.
Read Keeper of Two Buildings: Joseph Gelson of Advance Lodge No. 635.
The broader building story appears in A Cornerstone, a Dinner, and a Borough in a Hurry.
What the Shared Plan Establishes
The lodge account supports the reuse of drawings. It does not, by itself, establish that the finished rooms were identical in every detail.
Construction can depart from a drawing. Furnishings can change. Later work can alter a room while leaving its basic arrangement recognizable.
Without the original plans, construction records or a measured comparison, the shared-blueprint statement should not be expanded into a claim about every dimension, fitting or decorative feature.
Nor does the account establish an exact saving in money or construction time.
What it does document, as preserved in Advance’s history, is a practical relationship between two lodge-building projects.
Advance did not begin its lodge-room design from an entirely blank sheet. Its firm supplied a plan with a previous application at Hillside.
That is the architectural thread this article follows.
The Woodhaven Room
The author identifies Hillside’s temple as the building at 86-03 96th Street in Woodhaven.
A January 1925 newspaper listing places both Hillside Lodge No. 894 and Prosperity Lodge No. 962 in the “Masonic Temple, Ninety-sixth street, Woodhaven.”
The building is now the home of Queens Tabernacle, whose website gives the same street address.
A visible reminder of the earlier use remains above the entrance.
[Forgotten New York’s account of the building](WOODHAVEN TO FOREST HILLS 2022
WOODHAVEN TO FOREST HILLS 2022 By Kevin Walsh
A walk from Woodhaven to Forest Hills in which my route went along the south end of Forest Park, into Forest Hills Gardens
describes a sculpted open book displaying Psalm 133:
“Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.”
The inscription survives in public view. The condition of the former lodge-room interior is a separate question.
The material supplied for this article does not establish whether that room was removed, substantially altered or partly retained during the building’s later use.
It is therefore more accurate to say that the Woodhaven room is no longer documented here as an active Masonic lodge room than to say it has been destroyed.
The building remains. How much of the room remains requires an interior investigation.
Read more about the Hillside Masonic Temple in Woodhaven →
Bayside Took Another Road
Bayside Lodge No. 999 built its temple at Bell and Lamartine Avenues in 1923.
Its architect was Herbert O. Wiegand, a Bayside resident and lodge member.
Bayside Historical Society identifies Wiegand as the architect and Gabler Construction Company as the builder. Joan Brown Wettingfeld’s history states that he supplied plans and specifications and supervised the work without charge.
The contemporary newspaper account gives Bayside’s lodge-room dimensions as 33 by 53 feet.
The sources used here attribute Bayside’s design to Wiegand. They do not connect it to Wenige’s Hillside plan.
The comparison illustrates two documented arrangements, not the only two ways Queens lodges obtained buildings.
At Advance, the lodge’s account describes a member’s firm supplying a room plan already used elsewhere. At Bayside, the history describes a member preparing plans and supervising construction for the local project.
In both stories, architectural work entered lodge life through a brother’s professional connection.
Return to Part 5: Bayside Lodge No. 999 and the Bell Boulevard Temple →
The Astoria Room Still at Work
According to the author’s November 2026 account, the Advance Masonic Temple remains home to:
- Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586.
- Parthenon Lodge No. 1101.
- Tadmor Lodge No. 923.
The room is not simply an architectural remnant.
It continues to be used for the purpose for which a lodge room was built.
That continuity gives the blueprint story a present-day setting. The drawings described in Advance’s records are not connected only with a vanished project or a former address. They are associated with a room that still forms part of Masonic life in Astoria.
It should not be called an untouched 1916 interior without further evidence. Nor can it be presented as an exact view of what Hillside’s members saw.
Its significance is more carefully stated: it is the room still in Masonic use among the two applications of the plan identified by Advance’s history.
Why This Building Story Belongs in the Series
The 273 line follows institutions through divisions, consolidations and changes of name.
This companion article follows a different inheritance.
A lodge can receive more than a charter history from another place. It can borrow experience, professional assistance or a room already worked out on paper.
The Wenige connection makes that exchange visible.
Woodhaven and Astoria were separate projects, undertaken by separate lodges. The shared plan linked them without making them the same building or the same institution.
Bayside’s temple adds a useful contrast. Its member-architect supplied another route from a lodge’s ambitions to a finished room.
Together, the stories show why lodge buildings cannot be explained by charters alone. They were also made through working relationships.
What Astoria Kept
The record begins with a member’s name and a date: Arthur E. Wenige, raised in Advance in 1903.
It continues with a firm, a connection to Hillside and an account of drawings supplied when Advance needed them.
The Woodhaven building changed use. The Astoria temple continued.
Between them lies a shared plan whose full documentary trail still needs to be recovered.
The surviving room cannot answer every question. It does not identify Nelson, settle the date of Hillside’s construction or reveal every change made after the drawings reached Astoria.
But it gives the story a place.
A room first drawn for one Queens lodge became part of another lodge’s home. More than a century after Advance’s dedication, that second room is still being used.
Sources and Research Notes
1. Advance Lodge Records
Records of Advance Lodge No. 635, as examined and summarized by Brete Murphy.
These establish or supply the article’s principal claims:
- Arthur E. Wenige was raised on December 15, 1903.
- He was recorded as the lodge’s 294th member, aged twenty-six.
- He practiced in the partnership Wenige & Nelson.
- He later affiliated with Hillside Lodge No. 894.
- His firm supplied Advance with lodge-room blueprints previously used at Hillside.
- The lodge history describes assistance with prints at a reasonable rate.
- The Astoria temple’s present lodge occupants follow the author’s November 2026 account.
Direct archival links and page references were not supplied.
The shared-plan account is attributed to these lodge records. Original architectural drawings were not supplied for independent comparison.
2. Hillside’s Woodhaven Address
Brooklyn Daily Times, January 4, 1925.
Lists Hillside and Prosperity lodges at the Masonic Temple on Ninety-sixth Street, Woodhaven.
The identification of 86-03 96th Street as Hillside’s temple follows the author’s research.
Queens Tabernacle’s website independently gives its present address as 86-03 96th Street.
The church website establishes its address, not the complete history of the former lodge-room interior.
3. Advance’s Cornerstone and Dedication
Henry Martin, “Historical Data of Advance Lodge,” cornerstone address, November 20, 1915.
Advance Lodge records concerning the November 14, 1916 dedication.
The account of Townsend Scudder acting on behalf of Thomas C. Penny follows the lodge’s dedication history.
For the broader narrative, see A Cornerstone, a Dinner, and a Borough in a Hurry.
4. The Woodhaven Building and Psalm 133
[Forgotten New York, “Woodhaven to Forest Hills 2022,” October 29, 2023](WOODHAVEN TO FOREST HILLS 2022
WOODHAVEN TO FOREST HILLS 2022 By Kevin Walsh
A walk from Woodhaven to Forest Hills in which my route went along the south end of Forest Park, into Forest Hills Gardens
Identifies Queens Tabernacle at the former Masonic building and describes the sculpted book displaying Psalm 133.
The source does not establish the survival or removal of the former lodge-room interior.
The original research also identifies Queens Community Board 9’s places-of-worship information as a lead. A direct item link was not supplied.
5. Bayside’s Architect and Building
Bayside Historical Society, “Masonic Lodge”.
Identifies Herbert O. Wiegand, Gabler Construction Company and the December 10, 1923 dedication.
[Joan Brown Wettingfeld, “Our History: Masonic Temple Symbolic of Cultural Landmark,” QNS, February 8, 2007](Our History: Masonic temple symbolic of cultural landmark
Our History: Masonic temple symbolic of cultural landmark A cultural landmark is a site whose significance lies not in its architectural design alone, but rather in its association with figures and events of
Describes Wiegand’s contribution of plans, specifications and construction supervision.
The comparison with Advance is the author’s synthesis of the two documented accounts. It does not establish that these were the only architectural arrangements used by Queens lodges.
6. Bayside Lodge-Room Dimensions
Brooklyn Eagle, May 31, 1923, p. 26.
Reports a lodge room measuring 33 by 53 feet.
Those dimensions belong to Bayside. They should not be transferred to the Hillside or Advance room.
A Note on Survival and Access
This article distinguishes the survival of a building from the survival of its former interior.
The Woodhaven building remains, but its former lodge room has not been documented here through an interior survey.
The Astoria room remains in Masonic use according to the author’s account. That does not establish that every element is original or that the room is an exact duplicate of its Woodhaven counterpart.
Neither building should be assumed to offer unrestricted public access. Any proposed interior visit should be arranged with its occupants.
Questions for Further Research
- When was Hillside’s Woodhaven temple built and dedicated?
- What are the dimensions of Advance’s lodge room?
- Who was Nelson in Wenige & Nelson?
- What other work did the firm undertake?
- Do original drawings survive with the lodge, in public collections or in building records?
- What survives of the former Hillside lodge-room interior?
- What alterations have been made to Advance’s room since 1916?
- Did the firm adapt the plan for other lodges?
Continue Reading
- Advance Lodge No. 635: Lodge History
- Joseph Gelson of Advance Lodge No. 635
- A Cornerstone, a Dinner, and a Borough in a Hurry
- The Hillside Masonic Temple in Woodhaven
Follow the 273 Line
- Part 1: The 273 Line—Start Here
- Part 2: Atwood Lodge and the 1852 Division
- Part 3: Metropolitan Lodge’s Manhattan Century
- Part 4: Whitestone Lodge No. 973 and Its Temple
- Part 5: Bayside Lodge No. 999 and the Bell Boulevard Temple
- Part 6: One Lodge Room, Two Temples — You are here.
- Part 7: Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273 and Brandeis
← Part 5: Bayside Lodge · The 273 Line: Overview · Part 7: Francis Lewis Lodge →
