Queens History and Freemasonry / Springfield Gardens Series / Hillside Temple
Part of the Springfield Gardens Lodge series · A building history for Freemason Buildings of Queens
Main Feature: Nine Lodges, One Living History · Series Overview · Masonic Buildings
In 1913, a two-year-old Woodhaven lodge hired a member’s architectural firm, formed a holding company and began a columned temple among new cottages. Within seven years, its membership had grown enough to require enlargement.
November 10, 2026 · By Brete Murphy
A Stone on 96th Street
The church at 86-03 96th Street in Woodhaven carries reminders of an earlier institution.
Low on the front, a worn cornerstone identifies Hillside Lodge No. 894, F. & A.M., and records the Masonic year 5913.
Above the entrance, a carved open book displays Psalm 133, with its invocation of brethren dwelling together in unity.
Neither feature was commissioned for the building’s present church use.
Queens Tabernacle occupies the former Hillside Masonic Temple. Its address is also recorded in Queens Community Board 9’s places-of-worship directory.
According to local historian Joel Steven Kuszai, the congregation acquired the building in 1986.
For more than seventy years before that transition, the property had served Masonic purposes. It also accommodated organizations and events from the surrounding neighborhood, known to its early builders as Brooklyn Manor.
The building’s story is less about grandeur than method.
A young lodge decided it needed a hall. It found architectural expertise among its members, organized a company to hold the property and raised funds through neighborhood events.
Then, within seven years, it began enlarging a building that had already become too small.
A Lodge for Brooklyn Manor
Hillside Lodge was instituted on May 29, 1911.
The Grand Lodge chartered it as No. 894 on May 8, 1912, according to the author’s compilation of Grand Lodge records.
Its first Master, Joseph H. Courtenay, was later remembered as one of the men most active in obtaining a charter for a Woodhaven lodge.
He held the chair for two terms.
The lodge began with about thirty charter members.
Its surroundings were developing as well.
Brooklyn Manor was the name used for a section of Woodhaven north of Jamaica Avenue, where detached houses were being built.
Willard Avenue, now 96th Street, ran north from Jamaica Avenue past St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church.
The temple campaign preceded the elevated railway’s arrival in the neighborhood in 1917, as described in Kuszai’s “Hillside Temple”.
Hillside’s building belonged to that earlier phase of neighborhood development.
Its later institutional history became part of Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Nine Lodges, One Living History.
Plans After the Temple of Diana
In September 1913, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that plans had been filed with the Queens building department.
The site was on Willard Avenue, about 500 feet north of Jamaica Avenue.
The design was described as “somewhat after the style of the Temple of Diana,” with broad columns across the front.
The comparison was the newspaper’s description of the proposed appearance. It should not be read as proof of a precise archaeological model.
The upper floor would contain the lodge room and adjoining entrance spaces, reserved for fraternal work.
A banquet hall was planned below.
The initial estimate was $13,000; later reporting put the cost at about $15,000.
The plot measured 40 by 129 feet.
Architects Inside the Lodge
The architects were Wenige & Nelson.
Arthur E. Wenige was not simply an outside professional hired for the commission. He was a Hillside officer.
When members incorporated a holding company for the property, he became its secretary.
Courtenay was president, Dr. Albert L. Voltz vice president and J. H. Woods treasurer.
Fellows & Clarey were named as contractors.
The project therefore joined professional work with institutional responsibility. Members were organizing the ownership structure as well as commissioning the building.
The newspapers described the temple as being raised by the lodge’s members. That should not be taken to mean that all construction labor was performed by Masons rather than the named contractors.
A Room Without Windows
A January 1914 account described hollow-tile construction with a stucco and concrete finish.
Four substantial columns faced the street, approached by red-cement steps.
The completed building was reported at approximately 37 by 100 feet.
That measurement describes the structure, not the larger plot.
One detail distinguished the principal interior: the lodge room had no windows.
The report does not supply a complete explanation of the design decision. It does establish that a windowless meeting room was part of the original building described to readers.
Ground, Stone and Fair
Ground was broken on Thursday morning, October 2, 1913.
The Rev. James Stuart Neil, rector of St. Matthew’s and a lodge member, offered the invocation.
Courtenay turned the first earth with a silver-plated shovel, which the contemporary account said was placed in the lodge archives.
The later location or survival of that object has not been established.
The cornerstone ceremony followed on Saturday, November 15.
Grand Master Charles Smith came from Oneonta to officiate with Grand Lodge officers.
A Procession from the Parish House
The Masons assembled at the St. Matthew’s parish house nearby.
Led by a brass band, they marched in pairs toward Jamaica Avenue, crossed the avenue and returned on the opposite sidewalk, passing the Master’s house before reaching the ceremony.
Courtenay presented a souvenir silver trowel.
Grand Chaplain George R. Van De Water, rector of St. Andrew’s in Harlem, offered the prayer.
A memorial box was placed in the stone after its contents were read aloud.
Wenige was Senior Warden that day.
The architect was therefore present in another capacity as well: an officer of the institution whose rooms his firm had designed.
Paying for the Temple
The lodge planned to hold a weeklong fair inside the new building once it was sufficiently enclosed.
In December 1913, more than 150 people attended a fair-committee meeting in the parish house.
The Ladies’ Auxiliary organized a euchre party at Arcanum Hall in Richmond Hill to raise money for prizes.
Donations were collected through the lodge’s headquarters at 1796 Jamaica Avenue.
They included an automobile, a player piano and a parlor suite.
The campaign depended on people, premises and organizations beyond the lodge room.
The Fair Opens
The fair opened on Monday, January 26, 1914.
By then, Wenige was Master of the lodge, presiding in a building designed by his own firm.
Contemporary coverage described a large turnout and credited the work of 169 women and 100 men.
The Long Island Grotto’s participation included a procession along Jamaica Avenue behind its band.
These were fundraising events, but they also introduced the building to a wider audience.
Hillside was not merely constructing a room in which members could meet privately. It was organizing occasions that brought the neighborhood to its door.
Other lodges in the Springfield Gardens lineage followed related methods. Dunton’s club began a hall before its lodge received a charter, while Springfield Gardens’ own organizers formed a holding company to build for community as well as fraternal use.
Read Dunton Masonic Temple: A Clubhouse Before a Lodge.
The Room That Went to Astoria
The original lodge room acquired a second history.
According to the author’s Advance Lodge research, when Advance Lodge No. 635 planned its Astoria temple in 1915, Wenige supplied lodge-room drawings previously used at Hillside.
The record describes a professional arrangement at a reasonable rate, not a gift that should be assumed to have been free.
Wenige’s work connected two Queens buildings.
The Hillside room is not known to survive in its original form after later enlargements and church alterations.
The author identifies the surviving Advance lodge room on 30th Avenue as a counterpart derived from those drawings.
That makes Astoria a valuable comparison, although it is not proof that every dimension, finish or furnishing was identical.
For the related history, read One Room, Three Lodges: Arthur E. Wenige and the Advance Masonic Temple.
The wider institutional setting appears in One Lodge, Six Charters.
“Large Enough for All Time”
By the summer of 1920, Hillside’s temple was too small.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle recalled that it had once been considered “large enough for all time.”
The membership had grown from about thirty charter members to nearly five hundred.
The lodge began remodeling and enlarging the building, aiming to provide seats for four hundred when meetings resumed that autumn.
Wenige and Voltz served on the finance committee.
Kuszai’s building history describes an early-1920s addition that roughly doubled the footprint.
Whether that addition was exactly the project announced in August 1920 remains to be established through plans and permits.
The architect of the enlargement has not been identified.
Nor is it known whether the work replaced, extended or otherwise altered the original windowless lodge room.
The contemporary report establishes the pressure for more space. The complete architectural sequence remains open.
A Temple Other Lodges Used
Hillside’s building did not serve only Hillside.
Prosperity Lodge No. 962, chartered on May 6, 1920, was meeting at the Masonic Temple on 96th Street by January 1925, according to the author’s Grand Lodge and newspaper research.
Prosperity later entered the Suburban-Queens Village branch of the consolidation history that reached Springfield Gardens.
Its shared use of Hillside’s temple preceded that later institutional relationship.
The building also hosted occasions involving lodges outside this lineage.
Tadmor’s Woodhaven Beginning
Tadmor Lodge’s later anniversary history places its institution under dispensation at Hillside’s temple on August 26, 1914.
That was only seven months after Hillside’s fair opened.
In May 1925, Hillside’s Fellowcraft team traveled to Ridgewood to participate in third-degree work at Tadmor.
The relationship continued beyond the use of a room.
Read Tadmor Lodge No. 923: A Monument in the Making of Ridgewood.
A Wakefield Founder
When Wakefield Lodge was organized in South Ozone Park in 1929, one of its founding participants, Jeromus H. Meissner, came from Hillside.
That connection concerns an individual’s affiliation, not proof that Wakefield regularly occupied Hillside’s temple.
Wakefield’s later history appears in Richmond Hill Lodge No. 892: Four Lodges and the Long Life of a Number.
Courtenay Night
In November 1917, Masons gathered at Hillside for an occasion honoring Courtenay.
He had been appointed New York’s representative to the Grand Lodge of Nevada.
The event placed the first Master back at the center of the institution whose building he had helped bring into existence.
Brooklyn Manor’s Big Room
Kuszai’s research describes the temple as a venue for a range of neighborhood organizations.
Civic associations included the Homestead Civic and West End Civic groups.
Other users included the Junior Order United American Mechanics, the Improved Order of Red Men and DeMolay.
Dances, bunco parties, public meetings and boxing also appear in the building’s later calendar.
These activities belong to the hall’s broader occupancy history. They should not automatically be treated as programs organized or endorsed by Hillside Lodge.
The Veterans’ Meeting Place
Whiting Post No. 59 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars also used the temple before obtaining premises of its own.
In “A Short History of the Queens Fourth Ward Memorial Day Parade”, Kuszai places the post’s move to Hillside in 1920 and its departure for its own building in the mid-1920s.
That tenancy illustrates a practical role played by fraternal halls.
A building commissioned for one institution could provide a starting place for another organization not yet able to maintain separate quarters.
Council-Hillside and the Sale
On April 29, 1963, Council Lodge No. 979 consolidated with Hillside.
The combined institution became Council-Hillside Lodge No. 894.
The date and name follow the author’s compilation of Grand Lodge records.
The retained number linked the new body to Hillside’s earlier charter.
The temple continued in Masonic use into the following decades.
Kuszai dates its sale to Queens Tabernacle to 1986.
That date is attributed to his account. The deed and selling entity have not been independently identified in the research presented here.
On July 22, 1994, Council-Hillside entered Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057, according to the author’s consolidation records.
The building’s transition to church use and the lodge’s later merger were separate events.
Their dates should not be collapsed into one moment of departure or institutional change.
For the complete consolidation framework, read Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Nine Lodges, One Living History.
A Church with Masonic Carvings
The congregation adapted the building for worship.
Its Masonic origins remain visible.
The cornerstone records Hillside’s name and number. The carved book above the entrance preserves the Psalm about brethren dwelling together in unity.
Forgotten New York’s account of the building independently identifies the former temple and the Psalm carving.
Those surviving features do not establish how much of the original interior remains.
They do make the building’s earlier identity legible from the street.
The words above the door now form part of a church’s setting, while the stone below preserves the name of the lodge that built the hall.
What Survived
Hillside’s temple began with a small membership and an ambitious plan.
Its builders used a member’s architectural expertise, organized a holding company and drew neighbors into the funding campaign.
Within seven years, growth required more space.
Other lodges and community organizations used the building.
The property later became a church, while Hillside’s institutional lineage continued through Council-Hillside and Springfield Gardens.
Neither history needs to be reduced to the other.
The lodge did not remain independently active merely because its cornerstone survived. The building did not lose all historical meaning because its use changed.
On 96th Street, the carvings preserve the connection.
Sources and Research Notes
Newspaper references follow the author’s supplied clippings packet. They identify the evidence used in the manuscript; they are not a claim that every original clipping was independently re-examined for this edition.
The Building and Its Later Use
Joel Steven Kuszai, “Hillside Temple”. Local-history account cited for Brooklyn Manor, the cornerstone, the later addition, community users and the 1986 sale. These property-history details remain attributed pending comparison with original records.
Queens Community Board 9, Churches and Places of Worship. Queens Tabernacle at 86-03 96th Street.
Queens Tabernacle. Congregation’s website. Present institutional use does not independently establish the property-transfer date.
Forgotten New York, “Richmond Hill 2014”. Former Masonic use and the carved Psalm above the entrance.
Joel Steven Kuszai, “A Short History of the Queens Fourth Ward Memorial Day Parade”. Whiting Post’s use of Hillside Temple and later acquisition of separate quarters.
Planning and Construction
“Hillside Lodge Temple,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 28, 1913, p. 5. Filed plans, site, classical comparison and initial estimate.
“Broke Masonic Records for Temple Building,” The Chat, October 4, 1913, p. 55. Groundbreaking, holding-company officers, contractors and St. Matthew’s participation.
“Hillside Lodge to Have Magnificent Fair,” Brooklyn Daily Times, January 5, 1914, p. 8. Building dimensions, materials, columns and windowless lodge room.
“Start New Temple for Hillside Lodge,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 16, 1913, p. 67; reprinted in The Chat, November 22, 1913, p. 51. Cornerstone ceremony and participants.
Fundraising and Enlargement
Fair-committee notice concerning December 10, 1913; The Chat, January 10 and 17, 1914; Times Union and Brooklyn Citizen, January 11, 1914; Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 18, 1914, p. 83. Auxiliary activity, donations and fair arrangements.
“Hillside Lodge Fair Opens at New Hall,” Brooklyn Daily Times, January 27, 1914, p. 8. Fair opening and participating workers.
“Enlarge Hillside Temple,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 30, 1920, pp. 16 and 20. Membership growth, seating needs and proposed alterations.
Members, Shared Use and Lineage
“Masons Honor Courtenay,” Brooklyn Daily Times, November 16, 1917, p. 9. Courtenay’s earlier service and Grand Lodge representative appointment.
Advance Lodge No. 635 records and the author’s Wenige research, including “The 273 Line, Part 6: One Lodge Room, Two Temples.” Relationship between the Hillside drawings and Advance’s Astoria lodge room.
Brooklyn Daily Times, January 4, 1925. Prosperity Lodge’s 96th Street meeting place.
Ridgewood Times, June 14, 1946. Tadmor’s retrospective account of its August 26, 1914 institution under dispensation at Hillside.
The Chat, May 9, 1925. Hillside’s Fellowcraft team at Tadmor.
Wakefield Lodge tenth-anniversary book, 1940. Jeromus H. Meissner’s Hillside affiliation.
Grand Lodge of New York records, as compiled by Brete Murphy. Hillside, Prosperity and Council charter details; the April 29, 1963 Council-Hillside consolidation; and the July 22, 1994 merger with Springfield Gardens.
A Note on the Evidence
The temple project began in 1913. The January 1914 fair establishes use of the new building, but it should not be substituted for an unlocated formal dedication date.
Proposed and completed dimensions may differ. The approximately 37-by-100-foot figure is attributed to the January 1914 description rather than imposed on every stage of the design.
The 1920 enlargement notice and the later account of a substantial early-1920s addition may describe the same project. That relationship remains to be confirmed.
The original windowless lodge room is not known to survive unchanged.
The Advance room provides a comparison through the reported reuse of drawings. It is not assumed to preserve every original Hillside detail.
The 1986 sale follows Kuszai’s account. Legal ownership and the identity of the seller require deed research.
Community use of the hall should be distinguished from activities organized by the lodge itself.
The supplied consolidation record gives July 22, 1994, for Council-Hillside’s entry into Springfield Gardens. Comparison with the original instrument remains advisable, as noted in the series dossier.
No claim is made that predecessor charters, minute books or ceremonial objects are physically held by a particular successor institution without an inventory.
Questions for Further Research
- Was the addition described by later historians the work announced in August 1920?
- Who designed the enlargement?
- Did Wenige & Nelson remain involved?
- How did the alterations affect the original lodge room?
- Who held legal title after the original holding company?
- Which entity conveyed the property in 1986?
- Do Hillside’s minutes or its reported 1921 printed history survive?
- Which other lodges regularly met in the building, and during what periods?
- What original interior features remain?
Research Gateways
The NYC Automated City Register Information System provides a starting point for recorded property-document research.
The NYC Municipal Archives provides information about historical city records and photographic collections.
The Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklyn Newsstand provides information about historic newspaper access.
These are research gateways, not direct links to every clipping, deed or photograph cited above.
Continue the Springfield Gardens Series
The Main Feature
Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Nine Lodges, One Living History
Follow the consolidation branches that brought Hillside, Council and seven other founding lodge identities into one continuing institution.
The Series Overview
Open the Springfield Gardens series
Find the lodge histories, building articles and lineage research.
A Different Building Campaign
Dunton Masonic Temple: A Clubhouse Before a Lodge
Compare Hillside’s project with a clubhouse begun before Dunton Lodge received its charter.
A Lodge in Other Institutions’ Rooms
Woodhull Lodge No. 982: The Search for a Temple of Its Own
Explore a contrasting history in which no lodge-owned temple has yet been identified.
Related Queens Histories
Wenige’s Astoria Connection
One Room, Three Lodges: Arthur E. Wenige and the Advance Masonic Temple
Follow the relationship between the Hillside and Advance lodge rooms.
A Ridgewood Lodge’s Woodhaven Beginning
Tadmor Lodge No. 923: A Monument in the Making of Ridgewood
Discover the institution set to work under dispensation at Hillside in 1914.
Another Temple of the Same Period
Richmond Hill Masonic Temple: A Lodge Room Upstairs, a Stage Downstairs
Compare a nearby building whose public auditorium and lodge room supported different kinds of gatherings.
Return to the Springfield Gardens Main Feature · Springfield Gardens Series Overview
Masonic Buildings in Queens · Lodge Histories · Queens History and Freemasonry
