Queens History and Freemasonry / Harmony Series / King David Lodge No. 994
November 10, 2026 · By Brete Murphy
Degree nights in Advance’s temple, a ladies’ night at the Hotel Astor, new quarters at Castle Hall and a service announced at the Astoria Center of Israel: newspaper notices trace King David Lodge through the rooms and public occasions of Masonic Astoria.
Harmony Main Feature · Series Overview · Related: Rufus King Lodge · Sources
Midnight in Flushing
On a Tuesday night in November 1926, King David Lodge No. 994 of Astoria held a degree gathering at the Masonic Temple in Flushing.
The Brooklyn Daily Times reported large delegations from most of the twenty-six lodges in Queens County.
King David was raising candidates to the Master Mason degree, with assistance from Council Lodge No. 979’s degree team. Maximilian M. Nemser, a former District Deputy from Manhattan, delivered the historical lecture.
At midnight, Master Isidor M. Kopelman welcomed the visitors to a collation in the banquet hall.1
The gathering brought together a host lodge, a visiting team, a guest lecturer and a building outside King David’s regular Astoria setting.
It is an unusually vivid example of the cooperation that appears throughout the lodge’s early newspaper record.
King David’s activities were its own. The rooms and ceremonial assistance could come from elsewhere.
For the visiting team’s institutional history, read Council Lodge No. 979 and Council-Hillside: Two Histories, One Number.
A Home on Grand Avenue
The author’s compilation of Grand Lodge records dates King David’s charter to May 3, 1922.2
Its early notices place it at the Astoria Masonic Temple, 114 Grand Avenue.
The supplied Advance Lodge records identify that temple with Advance Lodge No. 635’s building campaign: a cornerstone laid on November 20, 1915, and dedication on November 14, 1916, with Arthur Wenige named as architect.3
The author’s building research identifies the historic address with 21-14 30th Avenue.4
King David’s use of the temple should not be confused with ownership of it.
Newspaper references sometimes attach a lodge’s name possessively to its meeting place. That wording alone does not establish title to the building or the terms of occupancy.
The evidence assembled here documents King David meeting in Advance’s temple. A lease or financial record would be needed to explain the arrangement more fully.
The Fifty-First Communication
A January 1925 notice announced King David’s fifty-first stated communication at the Grand Avenue address.
The lodge was to pass a class of Entered Apprentices to the Fellowcraft degree.
Its Master was J. A. Albert, whose address was given as 60 Carver Street, Long Island City.5
The numbered communication supplies a useful measure of the young lodge’s activity.
It does not, by itself, establish an uninterrupted twice-monthly schedule. Summer recesses, special meetings and the lodge’s numbering practice would need to be considered.
Degree Work and Visiting Officers
The Brooklyn Daily Times repeatedly reported King David’s ceremonial work.
In October 1925, a notice described the third degree and the presentation of “the legendary drama” by the lodge’s own Fellowcraft team.6
The terminology requires care: a team described as a Fellowcraft team could participate in the dramatic work associated with the Master Mason degree.
In September 1926, the Fellowcraft degree marked the return from summer recess.
That December, District Deputy Charles H. Lavington brought the Grand Master’s message. A separate notice described a Past Masters’ Night in which former Masters occupied the officers’ stations.7
In 1927, Morris Brecher conferred the Fellowcraft degree with assistance from visiting Queens Masters.
Later that year, King David honored Dr. Nemser at the Flushing temple for service he had given the lodge “since it was chartered.”8
These references show a lodge working within a wider network.
Visitors were not simply an audience. They could take part in the ceremony, deliver instruction or lend their experience to a special occasion.
Officers and Installations
A January 1928 report described the installation of Joseph A. Leichter as Master.
Past Masters Philip Schoenfeld and Isidor Kopelman performed the installation. Abraham Rosenthal and Joseph Bernstein became Wardens.9
By the November 1929 Queens Masonic charity ball, Rosenthal was identified as Master.
King David participated alongside other Queens lodges in the Hotel Pennsylvania gathering.10
These notices provide names and offices at particular moments.
They are not a substitute for a complete succession of Masters or an annual membership return.
They do, however, make it possible to follow a young institution developing an officer line and maintaining relationships beyond its neighborhood.
Ladies’ Nights Away From the Lodge Room
King David’s social calendar was not confined to Grand Avenue.
Its 1925 Ladies’ Night took place at the Hotel Astor in Times Square.
The report described a vaudeville program and attendance by Masters from Brooklyn and Queens.11
In October 1927, the lodge advertised a Chinese supper and dance at the Steinway Inn in Astoria for members’ wives, mothers and sisters.12
The two venues illustrate different scales of gathering: a Manhattan hotel occasion and an event closer to the lodge’s regular neighborhood.
They also show why the lodge’s history cannot be reconstructed from one meeting address alone.
Its social life occupied a wider network of rooms.
Lincoln and “Jewish Humor”
Lectures formed another part of the program.
In February 1925, Dr. Henry H. Rubins spoke on Abraham Lincoln at the Grand Avenue temple.
A decade later, Thomas C. Cochran of New York University’s Washington Square College appeared in a notice for another Lincoln address.
In March 1935, lawyer Irving Davidson was announced to speak on “Jewish Humor” after a short business meeting.13
The subjects reveal something about the lodge’s educational and cultural calendar.
The Jewish-humor lecture, together with the later synagogue partnership, documents Jewish cultural and religious connections in its public life.
Neither establishes that the membership was exclusively Jewish.
Nor should members’ names be used as a substitute for evidence of their religious affiliations.
What the Individual Notices Show
No complete membership roll has been supplied for this article.
The located notices identify particular officers and members, but they do not establish the social composition of the entire lodge.
Funeral references include Bernhard Susser, associated with Manida Street in the Bronx in 1925, and Joseph Finkelstein, associated with Ninth Avenue in Astoria in 1929.14
Past Master Edward I. Sturim’s 1958 obituary described twenty-eight years selling work clothes for the H. D. Lee Company and gave a Tenbroeck Avenue address in the Bronx.15
Sturim supplies a documented occupational example.
The residential references also show that an Astoria lodge could include men living elsewhere.
The evidence supports those individual connections. It does not yet support a comprehensive description of King David as a lodge of one occupation, income group or religious community.
New Quarters at Castle Hall
In January 1933, a notice still placed King David at 114 Grand Avenue.16
An October 28, 1934 notice announced the first meeting in its “new quarters” at Castle Hall, 37-09 31st Avenue, for the following evening.
Proposed bylaw changes were on the agenda.17
Later notices placed social activities and further lodge business at Castle Hall, including a reception and dance and consideration of delinquent members and bylaw amendments.18
The move is documented.
Its cause is not.
The Depression provides historical context, but the coincidence of a move and financial or bylaw business does not establish why King David left the Advance temple.
Other Institutions at the Same Address
The author’s research notes also identify Castle Hall with a period of use by Astoria Lodge No. 963.
They connect the property’s later history with Holy Cross Ukrainian Catholic Church and, subsequently, Casa Galicia.19
Those associations make the address a promising subject for a separate building-use history.
The occupancy dates and continuity of the same structure should be established through the underlying parish, organizational and property records before they are presented as a complete sequence.
For King David, the secure point in the cited newspaper record is the announcement of new quarters at 37-09 31st Avenue in October 1934.
A Service Announced on Crescent Street
The next substantial episode in the supplied material comes from 1954.
The Brooklyn Record announced a joint Masonic service for the evening of April 9 at the Astoria Center of Israel, 27-35 Crescent Street.
The sponsors were Victoria Lodge of the Second Kings District and King David Lodge of the First Queens District. Charles Aron was identified as King David’s Master.20
The announced participants included:
- Raymond C. Ellis, Deputy Grand Master, speaking on “The Mind of God.”
- Rabbi Abraham Feldbin, the Center’s spiritual leader and a Past Master of Victoria Lodge.
- Captain Joshua L. Goldberg, chief of chaplains of the Third Naval District and the Center’s rabbi emeritus.
- Cantor Richard Cohn, described in the coverage as having been a Freemason in Germany before Nazi suppression of the fraternity.20
The Astoria Center of Israel’s building history places its construction in 1925–1926 and identifies Louis Allen Abramson as architect.21
The announced service connected two lodges, synagogue leadership and a senior Grand Lodge officer.
It is strong evidence of a public religious partnership.
Because the cited reports precede April 9, they establish the planned program rather than independently confirming attendance or the service’s proceedings.
A Later Forest Hills Association
A January 1972 newspaper item described King David as a lodge “of Forest Hills.”
Its incoming Master lived in Westchester.22
The geographic description marks a later association beyond Astoria.
It does not identify a meeting address or establish when the lodge left Castle Hall.
The research gap between the 1930s notices, the 1954 service announcement and the 1972 reference should remain visible rather than filled with an assumed continuous meeting-place history.
Consolidation and the Continuing Number
The author’s Grand Lodge compilation places King David’s consolidation with Cardozo Lodge No. 1150 in November 1975.
The resulting institution became Cardozo-King David Lodge No. 994.
Rufus King joined that branch in 1982. In 1990, the combined institution entered Harmony Lodge No. 241.2
The number 994 continued through the intermediate consolidations but was not the number of the resulting Harmony lodge.
For the complete framework, read Harmony Lodge No. 241: One Number, Six Lodge Histories.
An Older Name in an Obituary
When Emil Corsi of Bayside died in Florida in 1996, his obituary described him as a Past Master of “Cardoza King David Lodge No. 994.”23
The spelling is preserved here as printed in the notice.
The reference shows a predecessor affiliation remaining part of a member’s biography after the institution had entered Harmony.
It does not establish that the older lodge was still operating separately.
A Lodge Known Through Its Rooms
King David’s located newspaper record moves between several settings.
There were degree nights at Grand Avenue, a major gathering in Flushing, a hotel ladies’ night, a supper at the Steinway Inn, new quarters at Castle Hall and a service announced at a neighborhood synagogue.
No single address contains that history.
Nor do the sources assembled here establish that King David never owned property.
What they repeatedly document is a lodge conducting its work and social life within existing buildings.
The recurring subject is not the construction of a temple.
It is the making of an institutional life through ceremonies, committees, visitors, lectures and gatherings—and through the rooms in which those activities became possible.
Sources and Research Notes
References follow the author’s supplied manuscript and research notes. Newspaper links within the article lead to these source notes because direct clipping URLs were not supplied.
- Brooklyn Daily Times, November 14, 1926, p. 28. Flushing degree gathering, visiting delegations, Council Lodge’s team, Maximilian M. Nemser, Master Isidor M. Kopelman and midnight collation.
2. Grand Lodge of New York records, as compiled by Brete Murphy. May 3, 1922 charter and later consolidation chronology. The public Harmony history has previously supplied a different summary founding year; the original records should be compared to distinguish charter, institution and constitution milestones. See the Harmony lineage summary.
3. Advance Lodge No. 635 records in the author’s Advance Service Mizpah research packet. November 20, 1915 cornerstone; November 14, 1916 dedication; Arthur Wenige identified as architect. The original records were not independently examined for this conversion.
4. Give Me Astoria, “Astoria’s Advance Masonic Temple,” as identified in the author’s research. Historic and modern address correspondence and later building use. The author notes that the article gives a 1930 building date inconsistent with the supplied Advance records. Direct article URL remains to be added.
5. Brooklyn Daily Times, January 25, 1925, p. 63. Fifty-first stated communication, Fellowcraft work, J. A. Albert and the Grand Avenue address.
6. Brooklyn Daily Times, October 11, 1925, p. 60. Third-degree work and the lodge’s Fellowcraft team.
7. Brooklyn Daily Times, September 19, 1926, p. 30; December 5, 1926, p. 67; December 26, 1926, p. 29. Return from summer recess, district visit and Past Masters’ Night.
8. Brooklyn Daily Times, May 1, 1927, p. 23; November 13, 1927, p. 98. Morris Brecher’s degree work and the tribute to Nemser.
9. Brooklyn Daily Times, January 29, 1928, p. 24. Installation of Joseph A. Leichter and the Wardens.
10. Brooklyn Eagle, November 23, 1929, p. 4. Queens Masonic charity ball and Abraham Rosenthal’s identification as Master.
11. Brooklyn Daily Times, November 1, 1925, p. 6. Hotel Astor Ladies’ Night, entertainment and visiting Masters.
12. Brooklyn Daily Times, October 16, 1927, p. 64. Steinway Inn supper and dance.
13. Brooklyn Daily Times, February 15, 1925, p. 11; Times Union, February 10, 1935, p. 20, and March 24, 1935, p. 20. Lincoln lectures and Irving Davidson’s announced address on “Jewish Humor.”
14. New York Times, November 27, 1925, Bernhard Susser; August 30, 1929, Joseph Finkelstein. Funeral and residential references. Original wording should be checked before expanding the biographies.
15. New York Times, October 20, 1958. Edward I. Sturim’s obituary, occupation, residence and Past Master affiliation.
16. Times Union, January 8, 1933, p. 28. Continued Grand Avenue meeting-place reference.
17. Times Union, October 28, 1934, p. 20. Announcement of the October 29 first meeting in new quarters at Castle Hall, 37-09 31st Avenue.
18. Times Union, November 25 and December 16, 1934, and November 24, 1935, all p. 20. Castle Hall social activities and lodge business.
19. Brete Murphy, Castle Hall research notes, November 2026; Forgotten New York material concerning Casa Galicia; Holy Cross Ukrainian Catholic Church history; Astoria Lodge history. These are leads for a separate occupancy and building chronology. Direct source links and underlying property records remain to be added.
20. Brooklyn Record, April 2, 1954, p. 1; Daily News, March 14, 1954, p. 492. Announced April 9 service at the Astoria Center of Israel, sponsors and participants. Both citations precede the event.
21. Astoria Center of Israel historical material; Astoria Center of Israel, Wikipedia. Building background, construction period and architect. A direct institutional history page remains to be added.
22. Herald Statesman, January 14, 1972, p. 3. Forest Hills description and incoming Master’s Westchester residence. The individual is not named in this article.
23. Newsday, July 28, 1996, p. 62. Emil Corsi obituary and the printed “Cardoza King David Lodge No. 994” affiliation.
A Note on the Evidence
The May 3, 1922 charter date follows the author’s Grand Lodge compilation; differing public summary years require comparison with the original records.
The absence of a supplied membership roll does not establish that none survives.
Members’ names are not treated as proof of religious identity.
Cultural programs and the synagogue partnership document particular connections, not exclusive religious membership.
Newspaper announcements establish planned events unless a later report confirms their occurrence.
The 1934 Castle Hall move is documented; its cause is not.
The full Castle Hall occupancy and property history remains to be established.
The 1972 Forest Hills description does not supply a precise meeting address.
The current evidence documents use of existing buildings, not a complete search proving that the lodge never owned property.
Consolidation dates and official names follow the author’s compilation where indicated.
Continue the Harmony Series
The Main Feature
Harmony Lodge No. 241: One Number, Six Lodge Histories
Place King David within the full predecessor and consolidation framework.
The Manhattan Branch
Constitution Lodge No. 241: From a Broome Street Loft to Queens
Compare another institution whose history unfolded through existing meeting halls.
The Jamaica Branch
Rufus King Lodge No. 1091: A Jamaica Lodge in the Public Eye
Follow the lodge that later joined the Cardozo-King David branch.
The Postwar Consolidation Partner
Cardozo Lodge No. 1150: The Record So Far
Explore the predecessor that consolidated with King David in 1975.
The Series Overview
Find the companion lodge histories, meeting-place articles and lineage material.
Back to the Harmony Main Feature · Related: Rufus King Lodge · Harmony Series Overview
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