Prince Hall Masonic Temple
454 West 155th Street | Sugar Hill | built 1925
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1925
William McKinley Lodge builds its Masonic temple on West 155th Street
The Grand Lodge of New York's William McKinley Lodge No. 840 constructs a Masonic temple between 1924 and 1925 on West 155th Street between Amsterdam and St. Nicholas Avenues. The building serves as the lodge's meeting hall for less than a decade before the Great Depression upends its finances.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1933
The Depression forces the lodge into bankruptcy
Eight years after the temple opens, William McKinley Lodge goes bankrupt during the Great Depression, and Branch Securities Corporation repossesses the building. Manufacturers Trust Company later takes over the property and leases it to the Savage School for Physical Education starting in 1938.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1944
Prince Hall Freemasons make the building their state headquarters
After New York University absorbs the Savage School for Physical Education in 1943, the building returns to Masonic use in 1944 as the New York state headquarters of the Prince Hall branch of Freemasonry. Prince Hall Freemasonry is the historically African American branch of the fraternal order.
Source: Wikipedia
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