The Mizpah Masonic Temple on Whitney Avenue opened in 1921 as a home for one lodge and became a meeting place for several.
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The Mizpah Masonic Temple was built for a lodge that had met for nearly fifty years in a lawyer’s office, a hall on Broadway, and a second hall on Broadway. What the lodge got was a red-brick building with an auditorium for five hundred, a lodge room, a dining room, and, as the Brooklyn Daily Times reported, bowling alleys.
It was designed to hold a good many lodges besides Mizpah, and it did. Today it stands at 87-11 Whitney Avenue in Elmhurst, and a church uses it.
Why Mizpah Built a Temple
Mizpah Lodge No. 738’s earlier homes were rooms in other people’s buildings. The first was a law office in 1873. The second was the top floor of the Jebens Building on Broadway, furnished that spring for $529.11.
In 1905 the lodge moved to Arcanum Hall, also on Broadway. In 1916 it bought a site of its own for $6,000.
The lodge’s centennial history frames the decision as a matter of growth. By then the area was called Elmhurst, and the lodge describes the community as having gone from a country village of woodlands and farms to a suburb of spacious homes and landscaped gardens, and then to a borough of concrete sidewalks and apartment houses.
The lodge grew with it, and the history says that growth called for larger and more appropriate quarters.
Elmhurst and Its Corner
The temple went up at the northeast corner of Warner Avenue and Ketchum Place, on a plot seventy feet wide and a hundred feet deep.
Warner Avenue was soon renamed Whitney Avenue, which is the street the building is on today. The lodge’s two earlier halls had both been on Broadway.
Building the Temple
The plan the Times printed on December 31, 1919, called for a red-brick building of three stories above a basement, at a cost of $100,000, built by the Woodruff Construction Company of Long Island City.
The architect was Charles Hendry, a past master of the lodge. The first floor was an auditorium for more than five hundred people, the lodge room was on the second floor, the dining room on the third, and the basement was to have bowling alleys.
The Times also listed who was expected to move in: Mizpah, Geba, Forest Hills Lodge, Mizpah’s Star Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, and a commandery.
The cornerstone was laid on January 1, 1920, a story told in Mizpah Lodge No. 738 and the Laying of the Elmhurst Cornerstone.
The lodge kept paying for the building as it went up. With Mizpah’s Star Chapter No. 484 of the Eastern Star, it held a bazaar in the unfinished temple.
The Times reported in October 1920 on a week of events at what it called the new $200,000 temple, four stories of marble and brick on Warner Avenue near Ketcham Place. It was the first time the public could see inside.
Robert H. Robinson, then Grand Master, opened the bazaar on the Saturday evening, escorted into the auditorium from the lodge room by the past masters of Mizpah.
The rest of the week was divided among the fraternal bodies of the area. Monday was Shriners’ Night, with a concert by the Kismet Temple Band, and Tuesday was for Knights Templar and Royal Arch Masons.
Wednesday was Eastern Star Night, with a reception for the grand officers of the order. Thursday was Blue Lodge Night, with lodges from Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx and a double quartet from the Police Department.
Friday was for the fraternal organizations of Elmhurst and the borough, and several hundred prizes were awarded on Saturday.
Grand Master Robinson dedicated the temple on March 17, 1921, with the entire Grand Lodge staff present.
The mortgage lasted much longer than the bazaar. The lodge burned the last one in 1953, at its eightieth anniversary, thirty-two years after the dedication.
The Mizpah Masonic Temple Under One Roof
The Times was right that the building would hold more than one lodge.
Geba Lodge No. 954 was proposed by Mizpah, met at first in rented rooms in Jackson Heights, and moved into the Mizpah temple in its early days.
In 1938 Island City Lodge No. 586, whose own temple in Long Island City had been taken over by the federal court, began meeting there.
Service City Lodge and Geba were both meeting at Mizpah in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Several Queens lodges without halls of their own, or without the right one, ended up meeting there.
It was also the district’s classroom. According to the centennial history, the temple became the center of district Masonic activity. Writing in 1973, the history reported that the Masonic School of Instruction, founded in 1928, had been held there since its beginning.
The school was where officers of the district’s lodges learned their ritual work. Four Mizpah members served as Assistant Grand Lecturer, and the lodge supplied a long run of District Deputy Grand Masters.
The shared building brought several branches of the future Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586 under one roof before the consolidations joined them.
Later Years
The sources in hand say little about the temple after the consolidations. Two fragments suggest uses beyond the lodge meetings: a notice of a DeMolay event in 1960 and a collection reference mentioning bar mitzvahs and a lecture series connected with a Mizpah Temple in Queens. Neither is a full record of the building’s use.
Island City Mizpah Lodge consolidated with Advance in 1993 and moved to the Advance Masonic Temple in Astoria.
The Elmhurst building was later sold to a church. Christian Testimony Church is listed at 87-11 Whitney Avenue, and the name MIZPAH is still displayed above the door.
The Merger History follows the consolidations, while the Timeline places them beside the buildings and moves.
The Mizpah Masonic Temple still stands at 87-11 Whitney Avenue, and Mizpah’s name is the third word of the title of the lodge that meets in Astoria. The building was designed for lodges that needed a place to meet. It is now used by a congregation that needed one.
Sources and Notes
Newspapers
- Brooklyn Daily Times, December 31, 1919, p. 9.
- Brooklyn Daily Times, October 25, 1920, p. 7.
Lodge History
- Mizpah Lodge centennial history, “Lodge History,” 1973; author and exact date to be confirmed.
Later Building References
- Brownstoner, “A Walk on Whitney Avenue, Elmhurst,” 2014.
- Directory listings for Christian Testimony Church at 87-11 Whitney Avenue.
- Lodge-supplied confirmation, from photographs, of the MIZPAH inscription above the entrance.
[Before publication: add the exact Brownstoner publication date, identify the directory listings actually consulted, and confirm the building’s current use.]
Fragmentary References
- A notice of a DeMolay event on May 31, 1960, as quoted in a web summary; original publication to be located.
- Chaim Bloch Collection, 1916–1969, Internet Archive; fragment referring to a Mizpah Temple in Queens.
[Before publication: identify the original DeMolay notice and the precise Bloch Collection item if these references are retained.]
Note 1: Dates, Names, Figures, and Limits of the Record
The Times of December 31, 1919, gives three stories above a basement and a cost of $100,000. The Times of October 25, 1920, gives four stories and $200,000.
The centennial history gives no size or cost, only the $6,000 price of the site in 1916. The fourth story may be the basement, but the sources do not establish that explanation or account for the difference in reported cost.
The streets are Warner Avenue and Ketchum Place, spelled Ketcham in 1920. Warner Avenue was soon renamed Whitney Avenue, and the address is 87-11 Whitney Avenue.
The dedication date, March 17, 1921, comes from the centennial history. That history spells the Grand Master’s name Robertson; this article uses Robinson.
Charles Hendry, a past master of Mizpah Lodge, was the architect.
The Masonic School of Instruction was founded in 1928. The centennial history’s statement that it had been held at Mizpah “since the beginning” describes the position in 1973, not an independently established continuation to the present.
Christian Testimony Church is listed at 87-11 Whitney Avenue in directories. The 2014 Brownstoner walk notes that Whitney Avenue was formerly Warner Avenue and places the church there. The lodge confirms the MIZPAH inscription from photographs.
The date of the building’s sale to a church is not established here. Its placement after the 1993 consolidation in the narrative should not be read as a confirmed sale date.
The DeMolay and Bloch references are fragments and should not be read as full records. The DeMolay summary advertises a May 31 event at 8 p.m., with admission of one dollar and children free. The Bloch fragment mentions bar mitzvahs and a lecture series, but the available extract does not establish the dates, organizers, or full circumstances of that use.
The packet’s summary gives Mizpah’s charter as June 1875. The charter date used in this series is June 20, 1873, following Grand Lodge records.
Consolidations are given by year throughout the series.
Start Here · Series Hub · Timeline · Previous Article: Mizpah Cornerstone · Next Article: Advance Cornerstone · Related Directory: Mizpah Members · Related Member Profiles: To Be Assigned
Related Reading
- Mizpah’s Watchtower in Old Newtown: The Story of Mizpah Lodge No. 738
- Mizpah Lodge No. 738 and the Laying of the Elmhurst Cornerstone
- Geba Lodge No. 954
- Island City Lodge No. 586 and the Temple That Served the City
- The Advance Masonic Temple in Astoria
- The Merger History of Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586
- Series Hub: Advance Service Mizpah Lodge No. 586
