By Brete Murphy · November 9, 2026
Bayside Lodge No. 999 was barely a year old when it laid the cornerstone of its Bell Boulevard temple. Over the next six decades, Scouts, neighborhood organizations, charitable groups and visiting Masons made the building part of Bayside’s public life.
← Part 4: Whitestone Lodge and Its Temple · The 273 Line: Start Here · Part 6: Arthur E. Wenige and the Lodge Room →
On Memorial Day afternoon in 1923, Masons from across Queens marched through Bayside behind the band from Fort Totten.
Leading them was Robert Wayman Jr., Master of a lodge barely a year old.
At half past three, Grand Master Arthur S. Tompkins laid the cornerstone of a temple at Bell and Lamartine Avenues. One newspaper estimated that two thousand people watched. A visitor from the United Grand Lodge of England was among those present.
The Bayside Yacht Club held its formal opening that afternoon, too, and the newspapers expected the crowds to overlap.
The Brooklyn Eagle thought “local history was made.”
The building that rose over the following months gave the lodge a home. Over the next six decades, its rooms also accommodated a much wider neighborhood: Scouts earning badges, women organizing benefits, families attending services and groups looking for a hall.
It was private property, but a good deal of Bayside passed through its doors.
A Lodge Before It Had a Temple
Bayside Lodge No. 999 received its charter on May 3, 1922, according to the Grand Lodge records supplied for this series.
Its first officers were installed at the Flushing Masonic Temple, the home of Cornucopia Lodge No. 563.
The contemporary account called Cornucopia Bayside’s “daddy.”
Deputy Grand Master Charles Schroeder of Richmond Hill installed Robert Wayman Jr. as Master, Arvine C. Leach as Senior Warden, Fred C. Pearson as Junior Warden, William C. Smart as Treasurer and Harry L. Dayton as Secretary.
The new lodge began in another lodge’s rooms. Within little more than a year, it was laying a cornerstone of its own.
By the time of that ceremony, a newspaper reported 175 members.
Read more about the host lodge in Cornucopia Lodge No. 563: Borrowed Aprons and the Making of Flushing.
The Iris King and the Entertainment Committee
The 1923 membership roster, preserved in the cornerstone program and summarized by Bayside historian Joan Brown Wettingfeld, reads like a tour of the neighborhood’s businesses and institutions.
It included the proprietor of the Alley Store, the owner of Bayside’s first movie house, the proprietor of Snell’s Hotel and the commodore of the Bayside Yacht Club.
There was an engineer from the Long Island Rail Road’s marine department. Elmer Story, described as Bayside’s first resident lawyer and president of the Bayside National Bank, appeared among the members. So did several Daytons associated with the family real-estate business.
Wayman was a nurseryman known as the “Iris King of America.”
Ned Wayburn, associated with the Ziegfeld Follies and a Broadway dance studio, headed the entertainment committee and produced a revue for the lodge’s first ball.
The roster does not stand for all of Bayside. It does show the range of local connections the lodge could draw upon.
Property, banking, transportation, horticulture and entertainment met in the same organization. When the members began building, some contributed money. Others supplied an instrument, an object or professional work.
The temple was a collective undertaking before it became a finished building.
Another Organization for Masons Living Nearby
In November 1923, a newspaper announced the formation of the Masonic Club of Bayside.
Its intended constituency extended beyond Bayside Lodge itself.
The account described Masons living within half an hour’s drive whose lodge memberships were elsewhere and who had not attended those distant lodges for years. The new club offered a local gathering place, with a restaurant, billiard tables and other comforts promised in the temple.
The club and the lodge should not be treated as interchangeable bodies.
The lodge had its charter and officers. The club was another organization, intended to bring nearby Masons into the building even when their own lodge affiliations lay elsewhere.
Together, the reports suggest a larger demand for the temple than the membership of No. 999 alone could explain.
A Brother Draws the Plans
The first proposed site was a 100-by-150-foot parcel at Lawrence Boulevard and First Street.
The members changed course and selected a lot of the same dimensions at the northeast corner of Bell and Lamartine Avenues.
Lamartine later became 36th Avenue. Bell Avenue became Bell Boulevard.
The architect was Herbert O. Wiegand, a Bayside resident and a member of the lodge. Wettingfeld’s account states that he supplied the plans and specifications and supervised the work without charge.
The Gabler Construction Company built the temple.
Newspapers described three stories of “deep, rich red brick,” with white Corinthian columns and cream-white terra-cotta trim.
Inside were rooms for different kinds of gathering:
- A lodge room measuring 33 by 53 feet.
- An auditorium measuring 38 by 49 feet.
- A large dining room.
- A billiard room.
- A reception room.
- Offices for the secretary and treasurer.
Those rooms help explain the building’s later life.
It was not simply a ceremonial chamber behind an imposing entrance. Its plan included places to eat, entertain, conduct business and assemble a crowd.
The sculptor Louis S. Massimo designed and donated a decoration for the Master’s station. Members contributed the cornerstone, an organ and a piano.
The New York City Organ Project identifies Hillgreen, Lane & Company’s 1923 work as a rebuilding and electrification of an earlier organ by an unknown maker.
The building gave those contributions a common address.
A Dedication Before the Year Was Out
The cornerstone was laid on May 30, 1923.
The temple was dedicated on December 10.
The lodge had moved from charter to dedication in about nineteen months, with the principal construction taking place between the spring ceremony and the December opening.
The reported cost is less straightforward.
The sources assembled for this article give figures ranging from $65,000 to $100,000 or more. Wettingfeld’s later history gives $80,000.
Without the building accounts, those figures should not be treated as a single settled final cost.
What is clear is the scale of the commitment. A young lodge had secured a site, obtained a member’s architectural services and opened a substantial building with rooms intended for more than its stated meetings.
Its path differed from the lodge-room history examined in the next article, where the author’s research connects plans used at Hillside in Woodhaven with Advance in Astoria.
Bayside’s temple was designed by its own member for its own site.
Continue to Part 6: Arthur E. Wenige—The Room That Serves Three →
The Town Comes Through the Doors
The newspapers repeatedly record people using the temple who were not identified as members of Bayside Lodge.
Boy Scout courts of honor for Bayside, Douglaston and Little Neck took place there in 1927, 1928 and 1929. The badges included firemanship, bird study and leathercraft.
A newly instituted court of the Catholic Daughters of America held its first card party there in 1927.
Other Masonic organizations used the building as well: Unity Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, Bayside Chapter No. 737 of the Order of the Eastern Star and the lodge’s Fellowcraft Club.
A Manhattan lodge conducted a member’s funeral service there in 1930.
Later notices bring different activities into the same rooms.
The Queens women’s division of the American Jewish Congress held a bazaar in 1968. A widows’ group attended a Social Security talk in 1978. Flea markets appeared in the listings in the early 1980s, as did a fashion show organized by a new ladies’ auxiliary of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
These were different organizations with different purposes.
What they shared was a need for a room.
The temple’s civic role emerges not from a single declaration of purpose, but from the recurring notices: another meeting, another benefit, another afternoon when the doors opened.
“Rented Out Almost Every Day”
That role became unusually explicit in January 1983.
Mayor Edward Koch had asked community boards to identify possible homeless-shelter sites. Community Board 11 listed the Bayside Masonic Temple.
The lodge’s Master, Kenneth E. Wagner, learned about the proposal from a reporter.
“It’s not possible,” he said.
The building was “rented out almost every day for Masonic lodge meetings and to community groups,” and, he added, there was “a big library in it.”
Across the street, the pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church placed the question in a different frame. Scripture supported helping people in need, he said, but “the right thing may not be the convenient thing.”
The newspaper exchange does not supply a complete account of the city’s process or the proposal’s eventual disposition. The material assembled for this article does not show the temple becoming a shelter.
It does preserve two competing views of the same building.
To a community board looking for space, the temple appeared as a possible public resource. To the Master responsible for its existing calendar, it was already occupied by commitments.
The disagreement gives the clearest contemporary description of how extensively the building was being used.
The Men Behind the Meeting Notices
The death notices return the story from the rooms to the members.
William C. Smart, the lodge’s first Treasurer, worked as an assistant superintendent of mails at Grand Central. He died in 1934.
Walter S. Dayton was remembered as a Past Master, a Legion post commander and president of the state association of real-estate boards.
Victor T. Ehre was a Past Master and former District Deputy Grand Master who later became president of the Buffalo Insurance Company.
Frederick W. Buhrman, associated with the sand-and-gravel business, left five hundred dollars to the lodge in his will.
The notices are brief, but they extend the picture supplied by the founding roster.
The lodge’s life ran through occupations, neighborhood offices and careers that sometimes took members elsewhere. The building held those connections together without containing the whole of them.
The Name Leaves the Door
Bayside Lodge No. 999 was still conducting Masonic funerals under its own name in 1984.
On August 14, 1986, it consolidated with Metropolitan-Whitestone Lodge No. 273.
The combined body became Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273.
For several years afterward, death notices continued to associate Francis Lewis with Bayside. Those references establish a continuing neighborhood identity, but not a complete chronology of meeting addresses or ownership.
The temple later passed to Elim Presbyterian Church, according to the New York City Organ Project.
Bayside Historical Society identifies its later occupant as the Siloam Reformed Church of New York. The Organ Project describes Siloam as a Korean congregation.
The sale date, purchaser’s deed and price have not been established in the research supplied for this article. Nor does the 1986 consolidation, by itself, establish when the lodge stopped using the building.
The institutional history and the property history must be followed separately.
One continues in Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273. The other remains at Bell Boulevard and 36th Avenue.
What Made It Bayside’s Front Parlor
The phrase is an interpretation, not an old name for the building.
It describes the pattern in the record: a privately organized temple repeatedly used for the neighborhood’s gatherings.
The columns announced a substantial institution. The rooms behind them made it useful.
Scouts received badges there. Organizations raised money. Masons conducted services. Visitors came for talks, cards, fashion shows and flea markets.
By 1983, its Master described a building rented almost every day.
That is what distinguishes the Bayside temple story. The lodge built a home for itself, but the calendar made room for much more.
The cornerstone marked an institution taking root.
The meeting notices show how far its rooms reached.
Sources and Research Notes
References below follow the author’s assembled newspaper research, lodge records and identified public histories. Direct links are included where available; newspaper items without clipping URLs remain bibliographic references.
1. The Cornerstone Ceremony
- Brooklyn Eagle, May 31, 1923, p. 26.
- Brooklyn Citizen, May 31, 1923.
- Times Union, May 29, 1923.
- Brooklyn Daily Times, May 25, 1923.
- Daily News, May 27, 1923.
Support the procession, ceremony, building descriptions, reported attendance and contemporary membership figure.
The crowd of two thousand is a newspaper estimate.
2. Charter and Consolidation
Grand Lodge of New York records supplied by Brete Murphy:
- Bayside Lodge No. 999 charter: May 3, 1922.
- Consolidation with Metropolitan-Whitestone as Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273: August 14, 1986.
Direct public record-extract links were not supplied.
3. Organization and First Officers
Times Union, May 14, 1922.
Supports the Flushing setting, Cornucopia connection and installation of officers.
4. Founding Roster, Site and Member Contributions
[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
Summarizes the cornerstone program, membership roster, original site proposal, selected site, architectural contribution and gifts toward the building.
The present article relies on Wettingfeld’s summary; it does not claim independent examination of the original cornerstone program.
5. The Masonic Club of Bayside
Times Union, November 11, 1923.
The club is treated as distinct from the chartered lodge. The notice’s description of its intended constituency should not be converted into a membership count for Bayside Lodge.
6. Organ History
[New York City Organ Project, “Masonic Temple—Bayside”](Masonic Temple - Bayside (Queens), N.Y.
Masonic Temple - Bayside (Queens), N.Y.
Identifies Hillgreen, Lane & Company, Opus 743, 1923, and describes the rebuilding and electrification of an existing organ by an unknown maker.
Also records the later Elim Presbyterian and Siloam church associations.
The page prints the address as 32-25 Bell Boulevard, which differs from the 35-25 address in the author’s manuscript. The article therefore uses the street intersection pending verification.
7. Architect, Builder and Dedication
Bayside Historical Society, “Masonic Lodge”.
Identifies Herbert O. Wiegand as architect, Gabler Construction Company as builder, the December 10, 1923 dedication and the Bell Boulevard–36th Avenue location.
It identifies the later occupant as the Siloam Reformed Church of New York.
Contemporary reports include the spelling “H. O. Weigand.” The article follows the historical society’s “Wiegand.”
8. Scout Courts of Honor
- Brooklyn Daily Times, October 28, 1927.
- Brooklyn Daily Times, February 25, 1928.
- Brooklyn Daily Times, October 26, 1928.
- Brooklyn Daily Times, March 29, 1929.
9. Catholic Daughters of America
Brooklyn Daily Times, June 24, 1927.
First card party of the newly instituted court.
10. Other Masonic Organizations
- Brooklyn Daily Times, January 19, 1929.
- Brooklyn Eagle, April 19, 1937.
- Brooklyn Eagle, July 21, 1947.
References to Unity Chapter, Bayside Chapter of the Eastern Star and the Fellowcraft Club.
11. Visiting Lodge Funeral
Brooklyn Daily Times, January 6, 1930.
A Manhattan lodge’s use of the temple for a member’s funeral service.
12. Later Community Events
- Newsday, November 21, 1968.
- Daily News, April 7, 1978.
- Daily News, April 4, 1981.
- Newsday, May 5, 1981.
- Daily News, September 9, 1982.
- Newsday, December 16, 1984.
Support the bazaar, benefits and community-event examples in the text.
13. The Shelter Proposal
Gus Dallas, “Mason Jarred by Shelter Proposal,” Daily News, January 28, 1983.
Supports the reported proposal, Kenneth E. Wagner’s comments, the description of frequent rentals and the pastor’s response.
The article does not treat the exchange as a complete administrative history of the proposal.
14. Member Notices
- Times Union, December 4, 1934: William C. Smart.
- Newsday, March 6, 1980: Walter S. Dayton.
- Brooklyn Eagle, December 1, 1946, and Amherst Bee, January 26, 1956: Victor T. Ehre.
- Brooklyn Eagle, September 18, 1931: Frederick W. Buhrman’s bequest.
15. Later Bayside Lodge Services
- Daily News, January 29, 1984.
- Newsday, June 9, 1984.
Establish continued use of the Bayside Lodge name in Masonic funeral notices before the 1986 consolidation.
16. Property History Still to Be Established
The later church associations are supported by the Bayside Historical Society and New York City Organ Project pages linked above.
The sale date, deed, price and precise end of lodge occupancy remain unresolved.
The 1986 consolidation should not be used as a substitute for a property transaction date.
Questions for Further Research
- When was the temple sold, and what do the deed and sale records establish?
- Does the original 1923 cornerstone program survive in an accessible collection?
- What other buildings did Herbert O. Wiegand design?
- What happened to the temple’s library?
- Does Louis S. Massimo’s decoration survive in the building or in lodge custody?
- How did the lodge’s ownership and management arrangements relate to the Masonic Club?
- What can the founding members’ individual papers add to the building story?
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 — You are here.
- Part 6: Arthur E. Wenige—The Room That Serves Three
- Part 7: Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273 and Brandeis
← Part 4: Whitestone Lodge · The 273 Line: Overview · Part 6: Arthur E. Wenige →
