Queens History and Freemasonry / Springfield Gardens Series / Suburban Lodge at Tadmor Temple
November 10, 2026 · By Brete Murphy
Suburban Lodge began its working life inside Tadmor’s recently dedicated Ridgewood temple. Newspaper notices connect it with the building from 1928 through 1955, showing how an existing Masonic home could support another lodge’s ceremonies, commemorations and social life.
Series Overview · Companion: Suburban Lodge · Related: Tadmor Lodge
One Building, Two Institutional Histories
This article follows Suburban Lodge No. 1087’s use of Tadmor Masonic Temple.
It is not a complete history of either lodge.
The supplied Tadmor research identifies Tadmor Lodge No. 923 as the institution responsible for building and owning the temple. Contemporary newspaper notices identify Suburban as another lodge meeting inside it.13
That distinction matters.
An event held at Tadmor Temple was not necessarily an event conducted by Tadmor Lodge. Suburban could hold its own meetings, degree work and entertainments within its host’s building.
The precise legal and financial terms of that arrangement remain outside the sources assembled here.
For the separate institutional histories, read:
- Suburban Lodge No. 1087: A Ridgewood Lodge With a Suburban Name
- Tadmor Lodge No. 923: A Monument in the Making of Ridgewood
Tadmor’s New Temple
Tadmor’s temple stood at Forest Avenue and Summerfield Street in Ridgewood, identified in the supplied research with the later address 59-03 Summerfield Street.
The temple clippings place groundbreaking in August 1925.
Grand Master William A. Rowan laid the cornerstone on September 26, 1925. Grand Master Harold J. Richardson dedicated the completed building on December 11, 1926.1
The reported cost was approximately $200,000.
The same research describes a large lodge room, a banquet hall and a pipe organ presented by Granite Lodge No. 1011.1
Contemporary coverage reportedly characterized the lodge room as the largest in Brooklyn or Queens. That description should remain attributed to the coverage rather than treated as an independently verified comparison.
Whatever its precise ranking, the building could accommodate substantial gatherings.
Within eighteen months of its dedication, it hosted the constitution of three new lodges.
Suburban Begins at Tadmor
On May 19, 1928, Grand Master John A. Dutton constituted Suburban, Maspeth and Rufus King lodges at Tadmor Temple.
Charles W. Froessel assisted as Deputy for the occasion. The supplied Tadmor research identifies him as a former Master of the host lodge.12
The newspaper accounts described delegations led by the Masters of all thirty-two Queens lodges.
After the ceremonies, the gathering continued with a banquet in Tadmor’s banquet hall.23
For Suburban, the temple was more than the site of a founding ceremony.
The Brooklyn Eagle stated that the new lodge “will meet hereafter in Tadmor Temple.”3
That sentence establishes the intended continuing relationship.
Later notices show that the association extended well beyond the constitution night.
Degree Work in 1929
In April 1929, a Brooklyn lodge’s Fellowcraft team was announced to work the Master Mason degree in Suburban Lodge at Tadmor Temple.4
The terminology deserves care.
The visiting group was described as a Fellowcraft team, while the degree to be conferred was the third, or Master Mason, degree.
The notice identifies three distinct participants in the event:
- Suburban, the lodge holding the work.
- The visiting Brooklyn team assisting with it.
- Tadmor Temple, the building accommodating the ceremony.
Keeping those roles separate helps prevent a building reference from becoming an incorrect membership or institutional attribution.
Commemorations and Social Life
Suburban also used Tadmor for gatherings beyond degree ceremonies.
In February 1932, members and their families were invited to a George Washington bicentennial observance following a short business meeting.5
In October 1935, the lodge advertised a barn dance at the temple.6
These notices reveal a building supporting different parts of another lodge’s calendar.
The formal meeting room and the temple’s social facilities belonged to the same wider setting, even when the event was Suburban’s rather than Tadmor’s.
The notices do not establish the complete room arrangements or identify which spaces were used for every activity.
They do show that Suburban’s association with the building was not limited to ordinary business meetings.
Still Associated With Tadmor in 1955
A September 1955 notice again connects Suburban with the temple.
Master Leo T. DePaoli announced that Charles E. Fetscher would receive his commission as Grand Sword Bearer “at the Tadmor Masonic Temple.”7
This reference extends the documented association to twenty-seven years after Suburban’s constitution there.
It does not prove uninterrupted occupancy in every intervening year.
Taken together, however, the 1928, 1929, 1932, 1935 and 1955 notices establish a recurring relationship across more than a quarter century.
What the Arrangement Offered
Suburban began with access to a completed Masonic building rather than a documented construction project of its own.
The host temple had a lodge room, banquet facilities and an organ. Suburban’s notices record ceremonial, commemorative and social uses within that setting.13456
That is the supported contrast with a lodge undertaking its own land purchase and building campaign.
The surviving references do not establish:
- Suburban’s rent or other payments.
- Whether it contributed to repairs or alterations.
- Whether it had dedicated storage or exclusive rooms.
- How meeting dates were allocated.
- What rights or notice periods governed its occupancy.
It would therefore be premature to describe the arrangement as mortgage-free, financially uncomplicated or restrictive in particular ways.
Likewise, the sources cited here do not quantify Tadmor’s income from Suburban or establish how important that income was to the building’s operation.
The relationship is documented through use. Its business terms remain to be recovered.
The Later Floral Park Clue
By 1979, a member’s death notice used a different geographic description.
Jacob Krauss’s notice identified “Suburban Lodge 1087 (Masonic), Floral Park, N.Y.”8
That wording supplies a later Floral Park association.
It does not provide a meeting address, explain the move or establish when Suburban’s Tadmor occupancy ended.
The 1955 temple notice and the 1979 death notice mark two points in the record. They do not fill the intervening years.
Directories, lodge minutes, annual returns and additional meeting announcements are needed to reconstruct that transition.
The Host Building’s Later History
The supplied Tadmor packet reports a later decline in the host lodge’s membership to approximately sixty and a temple sale by around 2011.1
Those details belong to Tadmor’s later institutional and property history.
They should not be used to explain Suburban’s earlier change of location without evidence connecting the events.
The packet’s individual publication details and a recorded property transfer would help establish the sale chronology more securely.
The ownership history also requires attention to the distinction between Tadmor Lodge and any corporation that may have held title.
Suburban’s Continuing Institutional Line
Suburban consolidated with Queens Village Lodge on March 27, 1981, according to the author’s compilation of Grand Lodge records.
Prosperity joined the combined institution in 1984.
In 1998, Suburban-Queens Village consolidated with Jamaica to become Jamaica-Queens Village Lodge No. 546. That institution entered Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057 in 2013.9
Those consolidations trace Suburban’s institutional succession.
They are separate from the history of the Ridgewood building in which it began.
Read Suburban-Queens Village Lodge: Three Histories, One Consolidated Lodge for the intermediate institution.
For the complete framework, read Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Nine Lodges, One Living History.
More Than a Story of Cornerstones
Tadmor’s temple history includes a construction campaign, a cornerstone and a dedication.
Suburban’s use of the building adds another layer.
A completed temple could become the setting for another lodge’s beginnings and sustain its activities across decades.
The building’s name remained Tadmor’s. The meetings held inside it did not all belong to Tadmor Lodge.
That is the central relationship in this article: a host building and a separate institution making a working home within it.
Queens Masonic history includes the construction of new temples. It also includes the repeated use of existing ones.
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.
- Tadmor Lodge temple clippings in the author’s research packet. Supplied details include August 1925 groundbreaking; September 26, 1925 cornerstone ceremony; December 11, 1926 dedication; reported cost of approximately $200,000; organ presented by Granite Lodge No. 1011; building address; Froessel’s Tadmor affiliation; and later membership and sale references. Individual publication dates and page references should be added for these claims where available.
2. “Masons Constitute 3 Queens Lodges,” Brooklyn Eagle, May 21, 1928, p. 10. Constitution ceremony, participating officials, delegations and banquet.
3. “Three New Lodges Are Established in Queens by Masons,” Brooklyn Eagle, May 20, 1928, p. 8. Constitution of Suburban, Maspeth and Rufus King; announcement that Suburban would continue meeting at Tadmor Temple.
4. Brooklyn Eagle, April 21, 1929, p. 64. Visiting Brooklyn team and Master Mason degree in Suburban Lodge at Tadmor.
5. The Brooklyn Citizen, February 16, 1932, p. 3. George Washington bicentennial observance for Suburban members and their families.
6. Brooklyn Eagle, October 13, 1935, p. 56. Suburban barn dance at Tadmor Temple.
7. “Fetscher Installation,” Daily News, September 21, 1955, p. 615. Master Leo T. DePaoli and the announced commissioning of Charles E. Fetscher as Grand Sword Bearer at Tadmor Masonic Temple.
8. Jacob Krauss death notice, Newsday, July 28, 1979, p. 16. Floral Park description of Suburban Lodge. The notice does not establish a street address or departure date from Tadmor.
9. Grand Lodge of New York records, as compiled by Brete Murphy. Suburban’s 1981 consolidation with Queens Village and later institutional succession through Jamaica-Queens Village into Springfield Gardens. Dates follow the author’s compilation rather than an independent examination of the original instruments.
A Note on the Evidence
Tadmor Temple and Tadmor Lodge are not interchangeable references. Another lodge’s event could take place inside the building.
The cited notices establish Suburban’s recurring use of Tadmor from 1928 through 1955, not a complete record of uninterrupted tenancy.
The legal terms, payments and room-allocation arrangements remain undocumented here.
The reported size ranking for Tadmor’s lodge room remains attributed to contemporary coverage.
The 1979 Floral Park reference is a geographic clue, not a confirmed meeting address or move date.
Tadmor’s later membership decline and sale should not be treated as the cause of Suburban’s departure without connecting evidence.
The supplied packet’s approximate sale chronology requires comparison with recorded property documents.
Suburban’s consolidation history and Tadmor’s property history are separate lines of inquiry.
Questions for Further Research
- Which legal entity held title to Tadmor Temple?
- What agreement governed Suburban’s occupancy?
- What rent or other payments did Suburban make?
- Which rooms did it use?
- Which other lodges or organizations met in the building?
- How were meeting nights and special events scheduled?
- When did Suburban last meet at Tadmor?
- Where did it meet during the years before the 1979 Floral Park reference?
- When was the temple sold, and to whom?
- What survives of its lodge-room furnishings, organ and ceremonial features?
Continue the Springfield Gardens Series
The Companion Lodge History
Suburban Lodge No. 1087: A Ridgewood Lodge With a Suburban Name
Follow Suburban’s officers, activities and institutional succession beyond this building-use study.
The Host Institution
Tadmor Lodge No. 923: A Monument in the Making of Ridgewood
Explore the institution responsible for the temple project.
The Temple’s Separate History
Tadmor Masonic Temple in Ridgewood
Follow the building’s construction, facilities and later property history.
Another Shared Meeting Place
Queens Village Community House: A Lodge Room Without a Temple
Compare Suburban’s use of a Masonic host building with Queens Village Lodge’s use of a community house.
The Later Combined Institution
Suburban-Queens Village Lodge: Three Histories, One Consolidated Lodge
Read the history that began with the 1981 consolidation.
The Main Feature
Springfield Gardens Lodge No. 1057: Nine Lodges, One Living History
Place Suburban within the full consolidation framework.
Suburban Lodge History · Tadmor Lodge History · Springfield Gardens Series Overview
Masonic Buildings in Queens · Lodge Histories · Queens History and Freemasonry
