Mason-2014-Winter-Rnd1

Improvements to our Masonic Hall
RW Paul Reitz, Board of Trustees of the Masonic Hall and Home
As many of you have heard and as mentioned
during our Grand Master’s message on St.
John’s Day weekend, we have embarked on a
major renovation project at the Masonic Hall
in New York City. The project will include
air conditioning all eleven Lodge rooms and
converting the Jacobean Room on the 8 th floor
and the French Ionic Room on the 10 th floor to
very elegant collation rooms. There will also be
substantial alterations to the 2 nd floor banquet
room to better serve the Lodges, daytime tenants
of the facilities and for outside users. We will be
converting the 19 th floor to commercial space
after the December holidays.
The reasons are many. Air conditioning
will accommodate those Lodges that wish to
conduct meetings and Degree work in the
summer months, as well as those installations in
June when it can get uncomfortably warm. We
will provide more elegant collation rooms for
special Lodge social events, presentations, ladies’ nights, Table
Lodges and training sessions.
Improvements to the 2 nd floor will facilitate daytime seminars,
which were held 112 times last year. The improvements include
up-to-date audio, data and video capabilities. The pantries
serving the three floors will have full services, including hot
water heaters, refrigerators, ice makers, dishwashers, food
warmers, sinks and cabinets for storage.
We wish to make better use of our facilities. Our Lodge
rooms are currently used less than 50% of the time. By
increasing the use of the rooms by non-Masons, we can offset
the continual cost increases we have had over the past decade.
Our goal is to stabilize the costs to the Lodges that use the
facilities.
Having more commercial space available, we can continue
our contributions for many of the programs and projects
sponsored by the Board of Trustees. These will include
Camp Turk, The Empire State Mason magazine, the Robert R
Livingston Masonic Library, the Masonic Care Community,
Daniel D. Tompkins Chapel renovations, Grand Lodge
Educational Assistance Program, etc.
Some have expressed concerns, which need to be clarified:
We are not increasing the rates for those Lodges being moved
from the 19 th floor. The costs for 2 nd floor as well as the 8 th
and 9 th floor collation rooms will remain at the current rates
through next year. The 19 th floor will still be available until
January 1, 2015 so it can be used for December functions.
The current yearly rates for the Lodge rooms are good for
all 12 months. No Lodge will be moved to accommodate an
outside user; and if we would desire to make such
a change, we will seek the Lodges’ full consent.
The work for the collation and pantry rooms
is near completion. The air conditioning will be
in place before the cooling season in March of
2015. In addition, we have started a complete
overhaul of all the elevators, with the first elevator
completed on September 21 (second from the
23 rd Street entrance). The bathrooms are getting
a complete overhaul with water- and electricitysaving
features and provisions for handicapped
facilities. We are starting the process of bringing
sprinkler coverage to the 24 th Street building,
including the lobbies, anterooms and preparation
rooms. We are excited about all these changes
and feel that they will have a dramatic impact on
our Masonic Hall. s
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THE EMPIRE STATE MASON MAGAZINE T–E–A–M: Together Everybody Achieves More WINTER 2014