By Brete Murphy · November 9, 2026
Whitestone’s Masons began using their new lodge room in January 1922, before the dining room was finished. More than a century later, the building on 11th Avenue remains part of the city’s Masonic life.
← Whitestone Lodge No. 973: Lodge History · The 273 Line: Start Here · Related: Bayside’s Bell Boulevard Temple →
The Brooklyn Daily Times gave the measurements the way a proud lodge might have read them aloud.
Thirty-four feet wide. Sixty-two feet long. Sixteen feet high.
That was the new lodge room of the Whitestone Masonic Temple, used for the first time on Monday evening, January 9, 1922.
Beside it was a dining room with kitchens and “all accessories,” still unfinished. Until that work was complete, the newspaper explained, the building could not be dedicated.
The lodge room was ready before the rest of the house.
The building identified by the author as that 1922 temple still stands at 149-39 11th Avenue. Public Masonic directories continue to identify it as a meeting place.
Of the two purpose-built Queens temples examined in the Whitestone and Bayside branches of this series, Whitestone is the one still documented in Masonic use.
The lodge that built it no longer meets as an independent body. The building’s working life continued.
Before There Was a Temple
Whitestone Lodge No. 973 began without a hall of its own.
A July 3, 1920 newspaper notice announced its institution under dispensation for July 12 at the village Odd Fellows’ Hall.
The lodge received its charter on May 4, 1921, according to the Grand Lodge records supplied by the author.
Its constitution ceremony followed on May 26.
For that occasion, Grand Master Robert H. Robinson came to the Columbia Club gymnasium. The contemporary report described a gathering of about five hundred Masons.
The gymnasium supplied space for an exceptional evening. It does not, by itself, establish a regular lodge meeting address.
The distinction matters because the early record contains several kinds of rooms: borrowed meeting space, a ceremonial venue and, finally, a temple intended for continuing use.
By January 1922, Whitestone had reached the third.
Read Whitestone Lodge No. 973: Lodge History →
Thirty-Four by Sixty-Two
The new lodge room covered 2,108 square feet.
Its reported dimensions made it larger in floor area than the 33-by-53-foot room Bayside Lodge would build the following year.
The comparison does not establish that Whitestone’s temple was more elaborate or more expensive. The room measurements tell us about space, not the complete buildings.
They do show the scale of what Whitestone had prepared.
This was a substantial room for a lodge still early in its history.
The adjoining dining room and kitchens made provision for another part of lodge life: gathering around a table.
In January, the wives of the newly installed officers served the first luncheon even though the dining-room work was not yet complete.
The building was already being used while its finishing continued.
That first winter survives in practical details rather than a complete architectural account: the room’s dimensions, the kitchen arrangements, an unfinished dining space and a meal served before the dedication.
The sources supplied for this article do not identify the architect, builder or final cost.
Those omissions should remain visible. A detailed description of a room is not a substitute for a construction record.
A Chapter Room Under the Same Roof
By the spring, the temple also contained a room used by Cygnus Chapter No. 660 of the Order of the Eastern Star.
The April 3, 1922 newspaper report described the chapter-room dedication held on Saturday evening, April 1.
About four hundred members of the Order reportedly attended from Queens and Brooklyn.
The officers wore white with colored sashes. An emblem of the Order was illuminated during the presentation, and the lodge gave the chapter a Bible.
The report places Cygnus’s constitution near the end of 1921, although the precise date is damaged in the surviving text.
The April ceremony is clearer.
From its first spring, the temple accommodated at least two distinct organizations.
The chapter should not be treated simply as a women’s department of the lodge. It had its own identity and officers, sharing a building with Whitestone’s Masons.
The room gives the temple story a wider household without erasing the distinction between its occupants.
The Grand Master Comes to Whitestone
The temple dedication took place on Monday evening, February 27, 1922.
Grand Master Robinson and his staff came to Whitestone for the ceremony, attended by several hundred Masons from Queens and elsewhere in the city.
The St. Cecile Quartet sang.
The Reverend Thomas H. Mackenzie delivered the address.
Members of Cygnus Chapter and the officers’ wives served the collation in the new dining room.
The January account had treated that room’s unfinished condition as the reason dedication must wait. At the February ceremony, it was serving its intended purpose.
Robinson received a certificate of honorary membership.
He told the lodge that he was proud to belong to one “that had accomplished so much in such a short time.”
The sequence explains the compliment.
The institution under dispensation had been announced in July 1920. The lodge was chartered and constituted in May 1921. Its new room was in use in January 1922, and the temple was dedicated the following month.
About nineteen months separated the announced institution and the dedication.
Less than eight months separated the constitution ceremony and the first meeting in the new room.
The record establishes the pace. It does not yet explain the financing, construction arrangements or individual contributions that made it possible.
Two Queens Temple Stories
Whitestone and Bayside belong together in the 273 line, but their building records are not equally complete.
At Bayside, the sources identify a member-architect, Herbert O. Wiegand, a builder and a cornerstone procession.
At Whitestone, the strongest surviving accounts concern the first winter of use and the dedication.
One story begins with a parade and a public cornerstone. The other becomes vivid inside the building: a large lodge room, work continuing next door and a luncheon served before everything was finished.
The contrast is a difference in the surviving evidence, not proof that the buildings were conceived in fundamentally different ways.
Both lodges established temples soon after receiving their charters.
Both later entered the institutional line that became Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273.
Their buildings then followed different paths.
Read Bayside’s Front Parlor: Lodge No. 999 and the Temple on Bell Boulevard →
The Lodge Consolidates; the Building Remains
Whitestone Lodge No. 973 consolidated with Metropolitan Lodge No. 273 on December 21, 1972.
The combined body became Metropolitan-Whitestone Lodge No. 273.
In August 1986, Metropolitan-Whitestone joined Bayside under the name Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273.
Those dates establish institutional changes.
They do not, on their own, establish who held title to the Whitestone building, which lodges occupied it in every intervening year or when any particular tenant arrived or departed.
Later notices continued to associate Francis Lewis Lodge with Whitestone. A 2013 obituary described a member as belonging to the lodge “in Whitestone, N.Y.”
That wording preserves a geographical identity. It is not a deed, lease or complete meeting-place record.
The property history still needs to be followed separately from the consolidation history.
Read Metropolitan Lodge No. 273: The Lodge That Commuted →
Read Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273 and the Brandeis Connection →
Manhattan Lodge Names at a Whitestone Address
The building’s continuing Masonic use is documented in public directories.
The Grand Lodge’s lodge locator lists Harmony Lodge No. 241 at 149-39 11th Avenue.
The Ninth Manhattan District’s directory also identifies several lodges meeting at the Whitestone Masonic Temple, including Trinity No. 12, Knickerbocker No. 182 and Schiller No. 304.
Those listings support a broader point about the building’s later life.
A temple constructed for a Queens village lodge became a meeting place for lodges associated with other parts of the city.
That is a continuation of the movement traced elsewhere in this series, but it should not be reduced to a single transfer.
Different lodges have different institutional histories. Sharing a building does not merge their charters or make them branches of the Francis Lewis line.
Nor does the presence of district lodges establish that the building is formally the headquarters of the entire Ninth Manhattan District.
The useful statement is narrower: the temple accommodates Masonic activity extending beyond the lodge that built it and beyond a single district identity.
Explore the Grand Lodge lodge locator.
Explore the Ninth Manhattan District’s meeting-place directory.
What Survives of the First Room?
The January 1922 measurements are precise.
The present interior history is not.
The research supplied for this article does not establish whether the room retains its original dimensions, decorative scheme, furnishings or ceiling treatment.
A building can remain in the same use while its interior changes substantially.
An architectural survey, dated photographs, alteration records and lodge inventories would help connect the room described in 1922 with the room used today.
Until that work is done, the article should not present the temple as an untouched interior.
Its documented continuity is a continuity of Masonic use, not proof that nothing has changed.
The same distinction applies to the objects mentioned in the first-year reports.
The Bible presented to Cygnus, the illuminated emblem and the original furnishings belong to the research trail. Their present locations have not been established here.
The Room and the Building
The first newspaper account gave the room’s dimensions before the temple was ready for dedication.
That detail still gives the building a useful scale.
Thirty-four by sixty-two was enough space for the lodge to begin using its new home. The kitchen and dining room followed. Cygnus dedicated its chapter room. The Grand Master came, the quartet sang and the tables were used.
Later consolidations changed the name of the lodge that had built the temple.
They did not end the building’s Masonic life.
The room described in 1922 remains a question for architectural investigation. The continuing use of the address is easier to establish.
The temple outlasted Whitestone Lodge’s separate charter identity and became useful to other lodges.
That is not quite the same as a building surviving unchanged.
It is a building continuing to have work to do.
Building at a Glance
| Detail | Evidence or status |
|---|---|
| Building | Whitestone Masonic Temple |
| Address | 149-39 11th Avenue, identified by the author and supported by present Masonic listings |
| First reported use of new lodge room | January 9, 1922 |
| Reported lodge-room dimensions | 34 by 62 feet, with a height of 16 feet |
| Reported lodge-room floor area | 2,108 square feet |
| Temple dedication | February 27, 1922 |
| Cygnus chapter-room dedication | April 1, 1922 |
| Architect | Not established in the supplied sources |
| Builder | Not established in the supplied sources |
| Final cost | Not established in the supplied sources |
| Ownership sequence | Requires deed research |
| Original interior survival | Requires investigation |
| Later use | Continuing Masonic meeting place, supported by public lodge directories |
Sources and Research Notes
1. First Use of the New Room
Brooklyn Daily Times, January 11, 1922, p. 8.
Supports the January 9 first meeting, the 34-by-62-foot room, sixteen-foot height, unfinished dining room and early luncheon.
The floor area is calculated from the reported dimensions. It describes the lodge room, not the entire building.
2. Building Identification and Present Use
Brete Murphy identifies the 1922 temple as the building at 149-39 11th Avenue.
The Grand Lodge of New York lodge locator lists Harmony Lodge No. 241 at that address.
The Ninth Manhattan District directory identifies several lodges meeting at the Whitestone Masonic Temple.
Harmony’s [Grand Lodge Connect page](connect | Grand Lodge of New York
connect | Grand Lodge of New York
also displays a College Point address. The listings are therefore not treated as a fully reconciled current tenant roster.
The Grand Lodge locator also contains a Cornucopia entry at Whitestone that differs from the author’s November 2026 confirmation of Cornucopia’s College Point meeting place. That entry is not used here to establish Cornucopia’s present occupancy.
The article does not establish current title ownership.
3. Institution Under Dispensation
Brooklyn Daily Times, July 3, 1920, p. 6.
Announces the proposed July 12 institution in Odd Fellows’ Hall.
An advance notice establishes the scheduled event. A subsequent report or lodge record should be added to confirm its completion directly.
4. Constitution of Whitestone Lodge
Brooklyn Daily Times, May 28, 1921, p. 6.
Supports the May 26 ceremony, Grand Master Robinson’s participation and the Columbia Club gymnasium setting.
The reported crowd is a newspaper estimate.
The completed-event report is preferred over the conflicting date in an earlier notice.
5. Bayside Room Comparison
Brooklyn Eagle, May 31, 1923, p. 26.
Reports Bayside’s lodge room as 33 by 53 feet.
The comparison concerns floor dimensions only. It does not establish relative cost, capacity or architectural importance.
For the building context, see Bayside Historical Society’s Masonic Lodge history.
6. Cygnus Chapter Room
Brooklyn Daily Times, April 3, 1922, p. 16.
Supports the April 1 chapter-room dedication, attendance estimate, officers’ dress, illuminated emblem and presentation of a Bible.
The OCR text concerning the chapter’s earlier constitution date is damaged. December 1921 remains a reading to be checked against the page image.
The chapter is treated as a distinct organization sharing the temple.
7. Temple Dedication
Brooklyn Daily Times, February 27 and March 1, 1922.
Together support the planned and reported dedication, Grand Master Robinson’s participation, musical program, address, collation and honorary membership presentation.
The article distinguishes the advance report from the account published after the ceremony.
8. Consolidations and Later Whitestone References
Grand Lodge of New York records supplied by Brete Murphy:
- Metropolitan and Whitestone consolidation: December 21, 1972.
- Metropolitan-Whitestone and Bayside consolidation as Francis Lewis: August 14, 1986.
Legacy, February 25, 2013: Edmund Kubliski obituary.
The obituary’s Whitestone description is not treated as proof of occupancy at a particular address.
9. Later Institutional Histories
Harmony Lodge’s history is a separate research subject.
Its retained number, later consolidations and current name should be distinguished rather than compressed into a statement that the present combined lodge existed unchanged from 1851.
Likewise, lodges sharing the Whitestone building are not treated as constituent lodges of Francis Lewis unless supported by consolidation records.
A Note on the Evidence
The newspaper references follow the author’s supplied research. Direct clipping URLs were not supplied.
The identification of the present building with the 1922 temple follows the author’s confirmation.
Current directories support continuing Masonic use but do not establish uninterrupted occupancy, ownership or a complete tenant chronology.
The article does not claim that the original interior survives unchanged.
It does not identify the building as the formal headquarters of the Ninth Manhattan District without a specific source establishing that designation.
Questions for Further Research
- Who designed and built the temple?
- What did the construction and furnishing cost?
- Which entity held title before and after the 1972 and 1986 consolidations?
- When did each later lodge begin meeting there?
- Was a cornerstone laid, and does it survive?
- What remains of the 1922 lodge-room interior?
- Where were Whitestone’s Odd Fellows’ Hall and Columbia Club?
- Do early photographs or plans show the chapter room and dining arrangements?
- What survives of Cygnus Chapter’s original furnishings and records?
Continue Reading
- Whitestone Lodge No. 973: Lodge History
- Metropolitan Lodge No. 273: The Lodge That Commuted
- Bayside Lodge No. 999 and the Bell Boulevard Temple
- Arthur E. Wenige: One Lodge Room, Two Temples
- Francis Lewis Lodge No. 273 and Brandeis
- The 273 Line: Research Dossier and Series Roadmap
← Whitestone Lodge No. 973 · The 273 Line: Overview · Bayside’s Temple →
