Queens History and Freemasonry / Springfield Gardens Series / Springfield Gardens Masonic Temple
November 10, 2026 · By Brete Murphy
After neighborhood efforts to establish a community house stalled, local Masons organized a club, formed a holding company and built a hall on Springfield Boulevard. The building opened in 1925—before the institution of the lodge it would house.
Series Overview · Main Feature: Nine Lodges, One Living History · Masonic Buildings in Queens
The Community House That Had Not Been Built
In 1920, the neighborhood wanted a community house.
According to Springfield Gardens Lodge’s twenty-fifth-anniversary history, earlier attempts to organize one had failed to gather sufficient support.
That September, forty-two local Masons met to consider whether they could carry the project forward.1
They began with a club rather than a lodge.
By April 1921, the Masonic Club reportedly had a hundred members. Five months later, it incorporated the Masonic Holding Company.
The anniversary account described the intended building as a meeting place “for the fraternal and civic organizations of the community.”1
That purpose extended beyond a lodge room.
The project was conceived as a hall that could serve several organizations and several kinds of gathering.
The club, holding company and eventual lodge were connected parts of the story. Their names should not, however, be treated as interchangeable legal identities.
A Corner by the Railroad
In the spring of 1922, the company bought a corner site on Springfield Boulevard, just south of the Long Island Rail Road.
The accounts place the purchase in the period when the railroad still crossed the boulevard at grade.12
The former temple is identified by the New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists as 138-35 Springfield Boulevard, near 138th Avenue.3
Buying the land did not immediately produce a building.
According to the anniversary account, an architect was not engaged until November 1924.
Groundbreaking followed in May 1925. On July 18, Grand Master William A. Rowan laid the cornerstone, with Grand Lodge officers attending.12
The surviving account identifies the stages more clearly than it explains the financing behind them.
The architect’s name, construction contracts, original plans and full project cost remain subjects for further research.
The Hall Came First
The building opened in October 1925, according to the lodge’s historical accounts.
Springfield Gardens Lodge was instituted the following month, on November 21, with thirty petitioners.12
Its charter as Lodge No. 1057 followed on May 6, 1926, according to the author’s compilation of Grand Lodge records.4
The order matters:
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| September 1920 | Forty-two local Masons meet to consider the community-house project. |
| April 1921 | The Masonic Club reportedly reaches a hundred members. |
| September 1921 | The Masonic Holding Company is incorporated. |
| Spring 1922 | The corner site is purchased. |
| November 1924 | An architect is engaged. |
| May 1925 | Ground is broken. |
| July 18, 1925 | The cornerstone is laid. |
| October 1925 | The building opens. |
| November 21, 1925 | Springfield Gardens Lodge is instituted. |
| May 6, 1926 | Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057 receives its charter. |
| January 1927 | The temple’s formal dedication is reported. |
Chronology follows the lodge’s retrospective accounts, contemporary dedication coverage and the author’s Grand Lodge compilation. The OCR problems in the anniversary account are discussed below.1245
The building was not the result of an already chartered lodge deciding to construct a temple.
The club and holding company had advanced the project before the lodge existed.
A comparable sequence appears in Dunton Lodge No. 1017: A Clubhouse First, a Lodge Second.
Dedication Night
Opening, institution, charter and dedication were separate milestones.
The formal dedication belongs to January 1927.
The Brooklyn Eagle announced the coming ceremony on January 6. The Chat reported it later that month, describing an auditorium filled before the appointed hour.5
John A. Dutton, then Deputy Grand Master and later Grand Master, conducted the ceremony for the Grand Lodge.
The participating officials included the Grand Treasurer, a former Grand Secretary and the Grand Chaplain. A quartet from a Brooklyn lodge supplied music.56
Springfield Gardens’ officers occupied their stations under Master W. Eugene Murray.
The reported dedication committee consisted of:
- Winfield S. Collins
- Edwin J. Elliott
- Alfred A. Higbie
- William A. Castine
- Robert J. Hunt
The final name requires a reading caution. The supplied OCR renders it as “Robert J. Trunt.” The author reads it as Robert J. Hunt, who appears as Master by 1929. The original newspaper image should be checked before treating that correction as settled.5
A Community Growing Around a Lodge
The lodge’s 1950 anniversary account preserved an observation attributed to Past Grand Master Rowan.
He described the institution’s task as having the community grow around it, reversing the more familiar order of a lodge emerging within an established community.1
That retrospective passage expresses how the lodge understood its early role.
It should not be read as evidence that no neighborhood existed before the temple, or that the Masons alone created its civic life.
The community-house campaign itself demonstrates that residents were already seeking places and institutions through which to organize.
The Neighborhood’s Big Room
The building’s uses extended beyond lodge ceremonies.
In January 1928, the Rosedale School of Dancing held its pupils’ midterm recital and dance at the Springfield Gardens Masonic Temple.
Nearly fifty children reportedly performed a program organized around the seasons and holidays.8
It was the kind of event the founders’ stated purpose had anticipated: a neighborhood gathering inside a hall built for more than one organization.
Music in the Temple
The American Guild of Organists’ building entry records a two-manual Möller pipe organ, Opus 5636, dating to 1929.3
That instrument forms part of the building’s history independently of the lodge’s later consolidations.
The cited entry does not, by itself, establish the organ’s present condition, whether it remains intact or whether it is still played.
Other Masonic Uses
The district history places Springfield Gardens Chapter No. 686 of the Order of the Eastern Star in the building from about 1930.
It also identifies the temple as a home for the Second Queens District’s School of Instruction.2
These uses made the building a shared fraternal setting rather than simply the meeting room of one lodge.
A District Gathering Place
In March 1935, Springfield Gardens Lodge held a homecoming for Roger C. Kipp, then District Deputy Grand Master.
The newspaper placed the occasion “in the Masonic Temple on Springfield Boulevard.”9
Notices from 1936 and 1937 also document official district visits.9
Such events brought the wider fraternity into the neighborhood building.
They also extended the temple’s role beyond the ordinary calendar of its resident lodge.
By 1950, the anniversary account placed lodge membership at 160, compared with the original thirty petitioners.
The same account described the building as “self-sustaining” and as a center of local civic, social and Masonic activity.1
Those descriptions belong to the lodge’s own retrospective assessment. They are not a substitute for financial statements or a complete calendar of outside users.
The Blood-Drive Years
The district history recalls large blood drives at the temple during the postwar decades.
Its account attributes more than 1,600 pints to a single drive in the late 1960s and describes the result as the best in New York State.
It also recalls donors receiving a meal and a small bottle of liquor.2
The scale and statewide ranking should remain attributed to that history unless contemporary blood-bank reports or newspaper coverage can confirm them.
Even with that limitation, the recollection shows how the lodge remembered the temple’s public-service role: not only as a place for meetings and entertainment, but as a setting for organized donation campaigns.
From Temple to Church
The date on which Springfield Gardens Lodge left the building is not established by the sources assembled here.
The district history written after the 2013 consolidation places the lodge at the Scottish Rite temple in Rockville Centre.2
The American Guild of Organists’ entry identifies the former Springfield Boulevard temple as Agape Church of God.3
Those references document a later institutional setting for the lodge and a later religious use for the building.
They do not establish the property-transfer date, the terms of a sale or the sequence of any intervening occupants.
The distinction is important: the lodge’s departure, a change of ownership and the beginning of church occupancy need not have occurred on the same date.
For the lodge’s later meeting-place story, read Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: A Queens Lodge Outside Queens.
A Building History Separate From the Charter
The temple began with a community-house proposal.
A club gathered members. A holding company acquired land. Construction followed, and the lodge was instituted after the building opened.
The later record includes children’s performances, an organ, Eastern Star meetings, district instruction, official visits and blood drives.
Eventually, the lodge’s meeting place and the building’s use diverged.
The continuing lodge carried its institutional history elsewhere. The Springfield Boulevard building acquired a different religious identity.
That is why the temple deserves a history separate from the lodge’s charter and consolidations.
One follows an institution through changes of membership and name. The other follows a place built to bring people together.
Sources and Research Notes
The references below follow the author’s supplied manuscript and research notes. Direct clipping URLs were not supplied, so the source-note links lead to these citations rather than to speculative archive pages.
- “Masons Honor Cutchogue Man,” The News-Review, December 7, 1950, p. 21, quoting Springfield Gardens Lodge’s twenty-fifth-anniversary history. Source for the community-house campaign, club, holding company, land purchase, construction sequence, early lodge membership and the building’s reported financial and civic position in 1950. The supplied OCR gives problematic groundbreaking and dedication years. The author interprets the groundbreaking year as 1925; contemporary 1927 coverage supplies the dedication chronology.
2. Queens Masonic District, history of Springfield Gardens Lodge. Source for the construction and institution sequence, Eastern Star use, School of Instruction, blood-drive recollections and the lodge’s later Rockville Centre meeting place.
3. New York City Chapter, American Guild of Organists, Queens building entry for 138-35 Springfield Boulevard: Möller Opus 5636, 1929, identified as the former Masonic temple and later Agape Church of God. Source for the address, organ and later building use. The entry’s identification is not treated as a newly verified statement of current occupancy.
4. Grand Lodge of New York records, as compiled by Brete Murphy. Source for the May 6, 1926 charter of Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057.
5. “New Temple to Be Dedicated,” Brooklyn Eagle, January 6, 1927, p. 23; The Chat, January 22, 1927, p. 19. Dedication announcement and report, participating officers, auditorium attendance and committee. The reading of “Robert J. Hunt” requires comparison with the original image.
6. Grand Lodge of New York, Past Grand Masters. Leadership chronology for William A. Rowan and John A. Dutton.
7. “Springfield Gardens, Queens,” Wikipedia. Supplied as a reference for the neighborhood’s naming chronology. The article does not rely on it to establish an official naming action in 1927; that claim requires a more specific contemporary or administrative source.
8. The Chat, January 28, 1928, p. 17. Rosedale School of Dancing recital and dance at the temple.
9. Times Union, March 10, 1935, p. 7; January 26, 1936; January 24, 1937, p. 8. Roger C. Kipp homecoming and district visits.
A Note on the Evidence
The Masonic Club, Masonic Holding Company and Springfield Gardens Lodge were related organizations, not interchangeable names for one legal entity.
The opening of the building, institution of the lodge, issuance of its charter and formal dedication were separate events.
The groundbreaking chronology includes an OCR correction that should be checked against the original newspaper image.
The dedication is placed in January 1927 from contemporary coverage; an exact ceremony date is not supplied here.
The claim that the neighborhood officially adopted its name in 1927 requires a more specific source and is not used as a foundation for the building’s chronology.
The “self-sustaining” description and blood-drive ranking remain attributed to lodge and district histories.
The former temple’s later church identification does not establish its present occupancy without an updated check.
The lodge’s departure date, property-transfer history and any intervening uses remain unresolved.
Questions for Further Research
- Who designed the temple?
- What did the original plans provide for lodge, civic and commercial uses?
- What were the land and construction costs?
- How did the holding company finance the project?
- What was the legal relationship between the company and the lodge?
- Which organizations regularly rented or used the hall?
- What was the exact dedication date?
- Do contemporary reports confirm the blood-drive total and statewide ranking?
- When did the lodge stop meeting at Springfield Boulevard?
- When and to whom was the property transferred?
- Does the 1929 Möller organ survive?
Continue the Springfield Gardens Series
The Main Feature
Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Nine Lodges, One Living History
Follow the institutional line separately from the history of the Springfield Boulevard building.
Another Club-Led Building Project
Dunton Lodge No. 1017: A Clubhouse First, a Lodge Second
Compare two projects in which a Masonic club advanced a building before the lodge received its charter.
A Lodge in Shared Civic Space
Queens Village Lodge No. 1046: A Neighborhood Lodge in the Community House
Explore a different relationship between a lodge and a neighborhood meeting house.
The Later Meeting Place
Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: A Queens Lodge Outside Queens
Read the separate story of the lodge’s later home in Rockville Centre.
The Series Overview
Open the Springfield Gardens Lodge Series
Find the related lodge histories, building articles and meeting-place studies.
Springfield Gardens Main Feature · Series Overview · Later Meeting Place
Masonic Buildings in Queens · Lodge Histories · Queens History and Freemasonry
