By Brete Murphy · November 10, 2026
Arthur E. Wenige’s firm designed Hillside’s Woodhaven temple and later supplied Advance Lodge with the same lodge-room blueprints for Astoria. Tadmor’s history adds another connection: the lodge began its work in the first building and now meets in the second.
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Tadmor Lodge No. 923 now meets in the Advance Masonic Temple at 21-14 30th Avenue in Astoria.
According to Advance Lodge’s building history, the room’s plan had an earlier home.
The architectural firm of Arthur E. Wenige had used the same lodge-room blueprints for Hillside Lodge’s temple in Woodhaven. When Advance prepared to build, Wenige’s firm supplied them again.
Tadmor’s own history adds the unexpected connection.
A retrospective published in 1946 places its institution under dispensation in the Hillside temple on August 26, 1914. More than a century later, Tadmor meets in the Astoria building associated with the second use of that plan.
The connection was not a return to the same building.
It was a return, through a different address, to a room plan linked with the lodge’s beginnings.
Between the two places stand an engineer, a professional favor and several generations of Queens lodges sharing what they had.
The Engineer From Woodhaven
Arthur E. Wenige was raised a Master Mason in Advance Lodge No. 635 on December 15, 1903.
The lodge’s register identified him as its 294th member, aged twenty-six.
Advance was then an established Astoria lodge, chartered in 1867 and still meeting in rented quarters. Its history gives a membership of ninety-seven Master Masons in 1900.
Wenige lived in Woodhaven.
Advance’s printed history identifies him as an assistant engineer in the Queens Borough President’s office in 1906. The civil-service appointment has not yet been independently checked against a city roster.
He also practiced in the firm Wenige & Nelson.
Nelson remains a surname in the material assembled for this article. The partnership’s wider work and the division of responsibility between its members have not been established here.
Those limits leave a narrower but useful professional identity.
Wenige was a lodge member whose work involved engineering and building design, living in the neighborhood where Hillside would soon organize.
Read Advance Lodge No. 635: Lodge History →
Brooklyn Manor Wants a Lodge
The neighborhood north of Jamaica Avenue was being developed and advertised as Brooklyn Manor.
Hillside Lodge was instituted on May 29, 1911, and chartered as No. 894 on May 8, 1912, according to the Grand Lodge compilation supplied by the author.
Its early membership was reported at about thirty.
Advance’s history identifies Wenige as a charter member of the new lodge near his home.
Hillside wanted a building quickly.
In September 1913, newspaper coverage described plans for a temple on Willard Avenue, now 96th Street, north of Jamaica Avenue.
The architects were Wenige & Nelson.
The lodge formed a holding company for the property, and Wenige served as its secretary.
That was a different responsibility from preparing drawings. The record places him in both the professional work and the organization established to hold the building.
Columns Outside, No Windows in the Lodge Room
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle described the design as “somewhat after the style of the Temple of Diana.”
Later reports described a hollow-tile building finished in stucco, about thirty-seven feet wide and one hundred feet long.
Four substantial columns marked the front. A red-cement stair led toward the entrance.
The lodge room occupied the upper floor. A banquet hall was below.
One detail in the January 1914 account stands out: the lodge room had no windows.
The dates followed close together.
An October 4 report places the groundbreaking on October 2, 1913. The cornerstone was laid on November 15, with Wenige identified as Senior Warden.
By January 26, 1914, Hillside was holding a week-long fair inside the building.
Wenige had become Master.
He was presiding in the lodge whose temple his firm had designed.
The construction chronology is not perfectly reconciled. A later secondary history places the start in late September. The contemporary reports should be checked together before assigning a single date to every phase of the work.
The larger sequence is clear: plans, construction, cornerstone and indoor use followed within a few months.
Tadmor Begins in Hillside’s Building
The new temple soon accommodated another lodge’s beginnings.
Tadmor’s thirty-first-anniversary history, published in the Ridgewood Times in 1946, states that thirty-one Masons signed its petition on June 9, 1914.
The same account places its institution under dispensation at Hillside’s temple on August 26.
That is a retrospective source, written more than thirty years after the event. Tadmor’s original petition and institution record would provide a stronger foundation.
Until those are checked, the location should remain attributed to the later history.
The account nevertheless supplies the essential connection: Tadmor began working in the Woodhaven building before receiving its own charter.
The relationship continued beyond that first accommodation.
In May 1925, a newspaper notice reported that Hillside’s Fellowcraft team would visit Tadmor in Ridgewood to work the third degree.
The connection was not only a room made available for an opening ceremony. It also included members traveling to assist with the work.
Astoria Asks
Advance was preparing a building project of its own.
Its history describes land acquired from the Rapalye estate on Grand Avenue, now 30th Avenue, in transactions during 1909 and 1910.
By the middle of the next decade, the lodge’s reported membership had grown substantially.
The building account also describes difficulty finding an architect.
Wenige’s firm supplied the practical connection.
According to Advance’s records, the firm arranged prints at a reasonable rate and gave the lodge the same lodge-room blueprints previously used at Hillside.
The scope matters.
The account concerns a lodge-room plan. It does not establish that the Woodhaven and Astoria temples were identical buildings or that every architectural service for Advance was supplied without charge.
The Astoria temple had its own exterior, circulation and additional rooms.
What traveled was the plan for a particular space within it.
What a Reused Plan Can Tell Us
The shared drawings are the article’s central evidence.
They do not establish every consequence the arrangement may have had.
A previously prepared plan might have reduced design work. It might have given the building committee a useful example to consider. But the material supplied here does not quantify a saving in fees or construction time.
Nor should a lodge-room arrangement be described as universally fixed in every architectural detail.
The stronger claim is the one Advance’s history actually supplies: the firm provided blueprints already used for Hillside’s room.
That is enough to show a professional connection operating across lodge boundaries.
It is not enough to prove that the two completed interiors matched in every dimension, fitting or decorative feature.
Original drawings, construction records and measured surveys would be needed for that comparison.
Advance Builds Its Home
Advance laid its cornerstone on November 20, 1915.
The lodge history identifies James Prowse Sr. as its donor.
The building opened for a week-long fair beginning April 24, 1916. Contemporary coverage described extensive electric lighting among the attractions.
The building committee’s September accounting gave a figure of $17,905.15.
That precise total should be preserved with its description. Without the complete account, it should not automatically be presented as the cost of the entire undertaking, including land, financing, furnishings and every later payment.
The temple was dedicated on November 14, 1916.
According to Advance’s record, Past Grand Master Townsend Scudder acted on behalf of Grand Master Thomas C. Penny.
The room plan was only one contribution to that result.
The project also required property, trustees, committees, construction and the work of preparing a building for use.
Joseph Gelson, a Past Master and trustee, chaired the Committee of Eleven according to the lodge records confirmed by the author.
Wenige’s firm and Gelson’s committee belonged to different parts of the same undertaking.
Read Joseph Gelson: Keeper of Two Buildings →
Read A Cornerstone, a Dinner, and a Borough in a Hurry →
One Man, Two Memberships?
The sources do not settle Wenige’s exact membership status when the drawings reached Advance.
Advance’s printed history says he left to become a charter member of Hillside.
A membership summary says he was raised in Advance and “later affiliated” with Hillside.
Those descriptions do not independently establish whether he held both memberships simultaneously, transferred from one lodge to the other or followed some other documented sequence.
“Later affiliated” should not be treated as proof of plural membership.
The question can be answered through membership cards, dimit records and the lodges’ returns.
For the building story, the professional relationship is clearer than the dues status.
The lodge history records a favor from the firm of a man raised in Advance who had become closely involved with Hillside.
The drawings are evidence of that continuing connection. His personal motives remain less fully documented.
“Large Enough for All Time”
Hillside’s building was soon being reconsidered.
An August 1920 account recalled that the temple had been thought “large enough for all time.”
The reported membership had risen from about thirty to almost five hundred.
An enlargement was intended to provide seating for four hundred, and Wenige appeared on the finance committee.
The growth figures are newspaper reports rather than a full analysis of the returns. Even with that qualification, the contrast is striking.
A building opened in 1914 was undergoing substantial expansion within the decade.
The effect on the original lodge room remains unresolved.
The present research does not establish whether the windowless upper room was retained, enlarged, replaced or reorganized during the work.
That uncertainty matters to the article’s central image.
The Astoria room may preserve the continuing use of the earlier plan, but it should not be described as a verified reconstruction of an interior known to have vanished in Woodhaven.
The fate of that first room still needs investigation.
More Than One Organization Under the Roof
Hillside’s temple accommodated other groups as well as its own lodge.
The assembled research identifies Prosperity Lodge No. 962, civic associations, a DeMolay chapter, a Veterans of Foreign Wars post and other fraternal organizations among its users.
Newspaper references also describe dances, parties, public meetings and boxing.
Those examples establish varied use. They should not be turned into a complete or uniformly celebratory account of the hall.
Joel Steven Kuszai’s later research also identifies reported Klan meetings there.
That subject requires its own examination of the underlying notices, the rental arrangements and the distinction between outside use of a building and sponsorship by its owner or lodge.
It should not be omitted from a comprehensive building history, nor used without evidence to attribute every tenant’s activities to Hillside’s members.
The room-plan connection is this article’s subject. The full calendar of the temple is a larger and more complicated story.
Read the Hillside Masonic Temple building history →
The Buildings Take Different Roads
Hillside consolidated with Council Lodge No. 979 in 1963, according to the Grand Lodge compilation supplied by the author.
Council-Hillside later joined Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057 in 1994.
Those dates trace the institution.
The building followed its own course.
Kuszai’s 2026 history dates its sale to Queens Tabernacle to 1986. The church’s own website gives its address as 86-03 96th Street, the former temple identified in the author’s research.
The sale date remains a secondary-source statement until checked against the deed.
Above the entrance, a sculpted open book displays Psalm 133, beginning:
“Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.”
The inscription remains a visible connection to the building’s earlier use.
It does not tell us how much of the lodge-room interior survives.
Explore Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Start Here →
Astoria Keeps a Working Lodge Room
The Astoria building remained in Masonic use.
Advance’s later institutional history includes its consolidation with Island City Mizpah in 1993 and the addition of Service City Geba in 2018, producing Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586.
According to the author’s November 2026 confirmation, the temple also accommodates Parthenon Lodge No. 1101 and Tadmor Lodge No. 923.
The room is therefore not simply a surviving interior associated with one lodge’s past.
It remains a place of work for several organizations.
That continuity should not be confused with an untouched 1916 appearance. Alterations, replacement furnishings and later repairs still need to be documented.
The careful distinction is between continuing use and unchanged fabric.
Astoria supplies the first. The extent of the second remains a research question.
Tadmor’s Long Way Back
Tadmor’s road to Astoria was not direct.
Its history led from Woodhaven to Ridgewood meeting places and temples. A 2011 newspaper account placed it in an American Legion hall in Forest Hills.
The exact date of its later arrival at Advance remains to be confirmed from lodge minutes.
Its present Astoria meeting place is confirmed by the author.
That makes the ending more precise than a claim that Tadmor returned to the same room.
It did not.
By its 1946 account, Tadmor began in Hillside’s Woodhaven building. It now meets in Advance’s Astoria building, where Advance’s records identify the same earlier lodge-room blueprints.
The buildings are different. The link is the plan.
A firm supplied drawings to two lodges. Another lodge’s history eventually passed through both places.
No single document yet explains every alteration or every move.
Taken together, the records preserve a connection that would be easy to miss if each lodge were studied alone.
That is what a century of shared rooms can leave behind.
Endnotes
1. Tadmor’s Institution at Hillside
Ridgewood Times, June 14, 1946.
The lodge’s thirty-first-anniversary retrospective supplies:
- Petition dated June 9, 1914.
- Thirty-one petitioners.
- Institution under dispensation on August 26, 1914.
- Hillside Masonic Temple as the institution venue.
The account is retrospective. Original petition, dispensation and institution records should be sought for direct confirmation.
2. Advance Membership and Blueprint Records
Records of Advance Lodge No. 635, as examined and summarized by Brete Murphy.
Supply:
- Wenige’s raising on December 15, 1903.
- His identification as the 294th member, aged twenty-six.
- The firm’s assistance with prints.
- The statement that the lodge-room blueprints had previously been used at Hillside.
- The author’s November 2026 account of the Astoria temple’s lodge occupants.
Original architectural drawings were not supplied for comparison.
The shared-blueprint account is attributed to the lodge’s records rather than independently established through surviving plans.
3. Advance’s Printed History and Building Account
The History of Advance Lodge No. 635, as supplied in the author’s research.
Also identified:
- Brooklyn Daily Times and Brooklyn Eagle coverage, 1912–1916.
- Building committee report, September 1916.
These support the professional description of Wenige, the 1906 assistant-engineer reference, the land acquisitions, construction events and later institutional history.
The $17,905.15 figure is described as a building-committee accounting. Its full scope requires inspection before it is treated as the complete project cost.
Exact edition, page references and clipping links remain to be added.
4. Hillside’s Institutional Dates
Grand Lodge of New York records compiled by Brete Murphy.
Supply:
- Institution: May 29, 1911.
- Charter: May 8, 1912.
- Consolidation with Council: 1963.
- Council-Hillside consolidation into Springfield Gardens: 1994.
These are institutional dates, not property transactions.
5. Hillside’s Design and Construction
- Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 28, 1913, p. 5.
- The Chat, October 4, 1913, p. 55.
- Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 16, 1913, p. 67.
- Brooklyn Daily Times, January 27, 1914, p. 8.
Support the firm’s architectural role, the design description, construction sequence, Wenige’s offices and the fair.
The groundbreaking date should be checked against the page images because the contemporary account and later secondary chronology differ.
6. Dimensions and Enlargement
- Brooklyn Daily Times, January 5, 1914, p. 8.
- Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 30, 1920, pp. 16 and 20.
Support the reported dimensions, windowless lodge room, expansion plans, membership figures and “large enough for all time” wording.
The effect of the enlargement on the original room remains unresolved.
7. Hillside’s Later Building History
Joel Steven Kuszai, “Hillside Temple,” August 29, 2026.
Supplies a later account of Brooklyn Manor, the enlargement, building users and reported 1986 sale to Queens Tabernacle.
The article also discusses reported Klan use of the hall. A comprehensive building history should examine the underlying evidence and distinguish tenancy from institutional sponsorship.
The sale date has not been checked here against a deed.
Queens Tabernacle’s website gives the present church address as 86-03 96th Street.
[Forgotten New York, “Woodhaven to Forest Hills 2022”](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 the sculpted book and Psalm 133.
These sources do not establish the survival of the former lodge-room interior.
8. Hillside’s Visit to Tadmor
The Chat, May 9, 1925.
Supports the announced visit by Hillside’s Fellowcraft team to Tadmor.
A report after the event would establish completion more directly.
9. Tadmor’s Later Meeting Places
Daily News, June 28, 2011.
Brete Murphy’s November 2026 confirmation that Tadmor meets at the Advance Masonic Temple.
The date of Tadmor’s arrival at Advance remains unresolved.
A Note on Membership and Survival
The descriptions “left Advance” and “later affiliated with Hillside” do not establish simultaneous membership.
A room plan used twice does not establish identical completed interiors.
The Hillside building survives, but the fate of its original lodge room remains uncertain.
The Advance room continues in Masonic use, but this article does not establish that its fabric and furnishings remain unchanged.
The article does not infer professional commissions beyond those supported by the supplied records.
Questions for Further Research
- Did Wenige dimit from Advance before joining Hillside?
- Who was Nelson in Wenige & Nelson?
- What are Wenige’s birth and death dates?
- How long did he serve in the Queens Borough President’s office?
- Did the 1920 enlargement retain the original Hillside room?
- What are Advance’s lodge-room dimensions?
- Do original drawings survive?
- When did Tadmor begin meeting at Advance?
- What do deeds establish about Hillside’s 1986 transfer?
- What do building records reveal about later alterations to both interiors?
Connecting the Active Lodges
Advance Service Mizpah
Advance Lodge No. 635: Lodge History
The Astoria lodge whose records preserve the blueprint account.
Springfield Gardens
Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Start Here
The continuing institutional line that includes Council-Hillside.
Tadmor
Tadmor Lodge No. 923: Lodge History
The lodge whose early Woodhaven and present Astoria connections bring the two buildings into one story.
Related Building and Member Stories
- The Hillside Masonic Temple in Woodhaven
- A Cornerstone, a Dinner, and a Borough in a Hurry
- Joseph Gelson: Keeper of Two Buildings
- Bayside Lodge No. 999 and Its Bell Boulevard Temple
← Part 5 of the 273 Line: Bayside Lodge · The 273 Line: Overview · Part 7: Francis Lewis and Brandeis →
