Queens History and Freemasonry / Springfield Gardens Series / A Queens Lodge Outside Queens
Part of the Springfield Gardens Lodge series · The continuing lodge and its Rockville Centre meeting place
Main Feature: Nine Lodges, One Living History · Series Overview · Active Lodges of Queens
Springfield Gardens Lodge still belongs to the Queens District, but it meets in Rockville Centre. Its present address raises a larger question: what continues when a neighborhood institution no longer meets in the neighborhood whose name it carries?
November 10, 2026 · By Brete Murphy
Tuesday Nights on Lincoln Avenue
Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057 meets at 28 Lincoln Avenue in Rockville Centre, Nassau County.
Its institutional affiliation remains Queens.
The lodge’s [Grand Lodge connect page](connect | Grand Lodge of New York
connect | Grand Lodge of New York
identifies it as part of the Queens District and lists its meeting place as the Scottish Rite Temple.
The regular schedule supplied for this series is the second and fourth Tuesdays from September through June.
Visitors should check the current calendar and confirm arrangements directly with the lodge.
The distinction between district and address is not a clerical error.
Springfield Gardens carries a Queens institutional history while conducting its meetings outside the borough.
Its name still points to southeast Queens. Its present door opens in Rockville Centre.
Not the Temple It Built
The Lincoln Avenue building is not the temple Springfield Gardens’ organizers constructed in the 1920s.
That building stands at 138-35 Springfield Boulevard in Queens.
The [New York City Organ Project’s record of the former temple](Masonic Temple - Springfield Gardens (Queens), N.Y.
Masonic Temple - Springfield Gardens (Queens), N.Y.
identifies its later use by Agape Church of God.
The Rockville Centre property is a different Masonic setting, associated with the Scottish Rite’s Valley of Rockville Centre.
Springfield Gardens’ occupancy does not establish that the lodge owns it.
A Shared Masonic Setting
A 2018 Long Island Herald profile by Ben Strack described the Lincoln Avenue hall, its meeting space and the Valley Masonic Historical Society’s displays.
Among the objects were Masonic aprons dating to 1921.
Those exhibits belong to the building’s wider historical activity. They should not automatically be described as Springfield Gardens’ collection.
The article also described the hall drawing Masonic groups as other meeting places closed.
That gives the building a regional role distinct from the neighborhood purpose of Springfield Gardens’ original temple.
The date of Springfield Gardens’ move remains to be established.
The author’s research identifies Jamaica-Queens Village Lodge No. 546 at the same address before its 2013 consolidation into Springfield Gardens.
That predecessor occupancy is part of the history, but it does not by itself date Springfield Gardens’ arrival.
What Came Through the Mergers
By the 2013 consolidation, Springfield Gardens’ lineage included nine separately founded lodges:
- Springfield Gardens No. 1057.
- Jamaica No. 546.
- Hillside No. 894.
- Prosperity No. 962.
- Council No. 979.
- Woodhull No. 982.
- Dunton No. 1017.
- Queens Village No. 1046.
- Suburban No. 1087.
They did not all enter Springfield Gardens independently.
Several had already combined under names including Council-Hillside, Suburban-Queens Village and Jamaica-Queens Village.
The full sequence appears in Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Nine Lodges, One Living History.
Lineage Is Not an Inventory
The mergers establish institutional succession.
They do not, without further documentation, establish that nine original charters or every predecessor’s minute books are physically stored at Lincoln Avenue.
The lodge’s retrospective history describes an expanding roll of Past Masters and members honored by the Grand Lodge as institutions combined.
That is evidence of inherited recognition and institutional memory.
The survival, location and ownership of particular records and objects require a separate inventory.
What can be stated securely is the relationship among the lodges—not the contents of every cabinet.
The Buildings Did Not Follow
The predecessor meeting places remained behind.
Hillside’s columned temple on 96th Street became Queens Tabernacle.
Springfield Gardens’ own building became Agape Church of God.
Dunton’s Van Wyck Boulevard clubhouse no longer survives at the site identified by the author, though its demolition date and cause remain unresolved.
Jamaica’s adapted chapel on Union Avenue still requires a complete later property history.
Other predecessors had used rooms in buildings they were not shown to own.
The lineage therefore did not bring a portfolio of intact neighborhood temples to Rockville Centre.
It brought institutional relationships formed across those places.
Read The Hillside Temple in Woodhaven, Dunton Masonic Temple: A Clubhouse Before a Lodge, and Woodhull Lodge No. 982: The Search for a Temple of Its Own.
Members Beyond the Neighborhood
Members’ death notices help explain the geography of the continuing institution, although they do not provide a complete membership survey.
The supplied notices place Springfield Gardens and predecessor-lodge members in Nassau and Suffolk communities, upstate New York and Florida.
Some retained their Masonic affiliations for decades after leaving the neighborhoods where they had joined.
One obituary identified a seventy-year Mason as belonging to Springfield Gardens at the Scottish Rite temple in Rockville Centre.
That wording connects an individual’s long affiliation with the lodge’s later address.
It does not establish when the move occurred or why that particular meeting place was chosen.
A Broader Catchment
The 2018 Lincoln Avenue profile describes Scottish Rite participants coming from across Long Island and beyond.
That is context for the hall’s regional function, not demographic evidence about Springfield Gardens alone.
It would be too strong to say that members’ addresses explain the relocation better than any minute could.
The minutes might record a lease decision, financial considerations, room availability or a merger arrangement.
The addresses establish something narrower: continued lodge membership did not depend on continued residence in southeast Queens.
The institution’s practical reach had become larger than the neighborhood in its name.
What Changed—and What Cannot Yet Be Said
Springfield Gardens’ retrospective history remembers a busy earlier calendar.
The Masonic Club met on Mondays. An Actor’s Club drew on members’ performance interests. Officers visited other lodges in tuxedos, and the temple hosted instruction and a large blood-collection effort.
Those activities belong to the institution’s recorded past.
The evidence supplied here does not establish the final date of each program or prove that every form of service ended when the lodge left its building.
A change of premises should not become an unsupported claim that charitable or educational work ceased.
What changed unmistakably was the relationship between institution and place.
The lodge no longer needed to maintain its original Queens hall in order to continue meeting.
Its district identity and historical name survived the change of address.
After 2013
The author’s consolidation research dates Jamaica-Queens Village’s entry into Springfield Gardens to July 22, 2013.
The current Grand Lodge page displays that date in its charter field.
It should not be confused with Springfield Gardens’ original May 6, 1926 charter.
The modern listing records a later stage of the institution’s history.
The present lodge continues under No. 1057.
Its inherited lines include Jamaica’s nineteenth-century history and the neighborhood lodges formed during the early twentieth century.
That makes Rockville Centre the current meeting place of a Queens succession, not the location where all those institutions began.
A Habit of Meeting
The founders of the 1920 club sought a community hall.
They bought land and built a place in which a neighborhood could gather.
Their successors faced a different practical problem: how to keep an institution working when its members, predecessors and meeting arrangements no longer fitted within one neighborhood.
The answer was not to preserve every separate name or every building.
It was to continue through consolidation and shared premises.
On Lincoln Avenue, Springfield Gardens retains its Queens affiliation and its historical name.
The original temple serves another institution.
The lodge still meets.
Sources and Research Notes
Present Address and Affiliation
- [Grand Lodge connect, Springfield Gardens No. 1057](Groupable
Groupable
Current Rockville Centre address, Scottish Rite Temple meeting place, Queens affiliation and calendar.
Queens Masonic District, history of Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057, as supplied in the author’s research. Earlier activities, officer-line pressures, merger recollections and honors.
MasonPost, Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057. Supplementary directory listing. The lodge’s own calendar should take precedence for visiting arrangements.
Lincoln Avenue
Ben Strack, “Rockville Centre Hall Preserves History, Values of Freemasonry,” Long Island Herald, October 31, 2018. Building, museum displays and regional Masonic use. Its description of Scottish Rite participation is not treated as a Springfield Gardens membership survey.
Jamaica-Queens Village Lodge No. 546 website, as identified in the author’s research. Rockville Centre meeting place before the 2013 consolidation.
The precise date Springfield Gardens began using Lincoln Avenue remains unestablished in the evidence assembled here.
Consolidation and Inheritance
Grand Lodge of New York records, as compiled by Brete Murphy. The predecessor relationships and July 22, 2013 consolidation.
Author’s Springfield Gardens lineage dossier. Nine founding lodge identities, intermediate combined names and unresolved record discrepancies.
Institutional succession does not establish physical custody of every original charter, minute book or artifact.
Former Buildings
- [New York City Organ Project, Masonic Temple—Springfield Gardens](Masonic Temple - Springfield Gardens (Queens), N.Y.
Masonic Temple - Springfield Gardens (Queens), N.Y.
Original temple address and later Agape Church use.
Joel Steven Kuszai, “Hillside Temple”. Hillside building history and reported 1986 sale.
Brete Murphy, site observation and identification, November 2026. Dunton’s former temple site. Historical parcel reconciliation and demolition chronology remain open.
Jamaica temple research assembled for the series. Union Avenue property’s later history remains unresolved.
Members’ Residences
Members’ notices in the Springfield Gardens and predecessor research packets, 1954–1987. Examples of relocation and continuing affiliation, not a complete demographic analysis.
William Raymond Motz obituary, The Evening Sun, as supplied in the author’s research. Reference to Springfield Gardens at the Scottish Rite temple in Rockville Centre.
A Note on Scope
This article combines the lodge’s post-consolidation history with its present meeting-place account.
It does not claim to provide a complete architectural or ownership history of 28 Lincoln Avenue.
The lodge’s Queens affiliation is distinct from its Nassau County meeting address.
No claim is made that it is the only Queens-affiliated Masonic institution meeting outside the borough without a defined, current comparative roster.
Rockville Centre and Springfield Gardens are both on Long Island. The relevant distinction is the city and county boundary, not island versus mainland.
Earlier activities are not declared extinct merely because their recent continuation has not been documented.
Questions for Further Research
- When did Springfield Gardens first meet at Lincoln Avenue?
- Did that move precede the 2013 consolidation?
- What were the occupancy arrangements for Jamaica-Queens Village?
- Which entity holds legal title to the Lincoln Avenue property?
- What predecessor records and objects survive, and where are they held?
- Which earlier charitable, educational and social activities continued after relocation?
- What do minutes record about choosing the Rockville Centre meeting place?
Continue the Springfield Gardens Series
The Main Feature
Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Nine Lodges, One Living History
Follow the founding organizations and the consolidations that shaped the continuing lodge.
The Series Overview
Open the Springfield Gardens Lodge series
Find the companion lodge histories, meeting-place studies and building articles.
The Woodhaven Building
The Hillside Temple in Woodhaven
Explore a predecessor temple that survives in church use.
The Van Wyck Clubhouse
Dunton Masonic Temple: A Clubhouse Before a Lodge
Trace a building campaign whose final property history remains unresolved.
A Lodge in Shared Premises
Woodhull Lodge No. 982: The Search for a Temple of Its Own
Discover another example of institutional continuity without an identified lodge-owned temple.
Return to the Springfield Gardens Main Feature · Springfield Gardens Series Overview
Active Lodges of Queens · Masonic Buildings in Queens · Queens History and Freemasonry
