Photos from MLMA Meeting 2007

Top Row, l-r: Dave Lettelier, Phoenixmasonry and webmaster of MLMA; Jeff Croteau, National Heritage Museum-Van Gorden William Library; Glenys Waldman, Masonic Library and Museum of Pa, President of MLMA; Larry Loyer; Eric Trosdahl, Saint Paul Lodge Number Three, St. Paul, Treasurer of MLMA.

Second Row: Val Korsniak, Mount Holly Masonic Lodge Library Committee (No. 14[NJ]); Mary Louise and (just behind her with beard) Tim Daley, Cleveland Masonic Library; James Graham, DGM, Arkansas; Bill Kreuger, Grand Lodge of Iowa Library; Albert Martin, Atlanta Masonic Library.

Third Row: John Dorner, Louis L. Williams Masonic Library & Museum, Bloomington, IL; Dick Browning, PGM Arkansas, Immediate Past-President; Jeff Fox, Louis L. Williams Masonic Library & Museum, Bloomington, IL; Jerry Stotler, Phoenixmasonry, Dodge City, KS; Virve Martin.

Front Row: Mark Tabbert, GW Masonic National Memorial VP of MLMA; George Lapham, GL of Washington (State); Cathy Giaimo, Masonic Library and Museum of Pa.; Jim Dufresne, GL of Maine; Brian Rountree, GL Manitoba, Canada, Secretary; Alan Reeves; Dodge City, KS.

Missing from the Photo: Dick and Judy Fletcher of the Masonic Service Assn., as is Carolyn Bain of the Masonic Information Center. Jay Hochberg, Beehive Newsletter Editor from NJ, who took the picture!

The train departs 5th street station (next to the hotel) headed to the Masonic Temple in the City Center.

A few MLMA earlybirds show up to have their picture taken in front of the Masonic Temple.

As you come out of the 15th street train station you can see the Masonic Temple at One North Broad Street.

The 2007 MLMA Convention is opened with a warm welcome by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania Masonic Temple Executive Director Andrew Zellers-Fredrick.

Glenys Waldman, GL of PA Librarian and Dennis Buttleman, the Museum Curator host the 2007 MLMA Convention.

MLMA President Dick Browning and MSA Director Dick Fletcher speaks to the participating members of the 2007 MLMA Convention.

Brian Rountree speaks about creating an online Masonic catalog. He recommended a web-based software program available at http://www.libraryworld.net

MLMA webmaster David Lettelier distributes a dvd disk, containing a Masonic e-book library, to attending MLMA members. Members are encouraged to take their master discs home to their Grand Lodges and have them reproduced for distribution to all their new Masonic candidates. The dvd e-library was developed to aide new candidates in their Masonic Education.

The most popular entree this evening was the Bangers and Mash! This is the English version of sausage and mashed potatoes. They were smothered in a rich onion gravy! They were washed down with hard cider and Guinness dark ale!

After dinner the group walked to a local ice Cream parlor for dessert!

Night-time lends splendor to Grand Entrance gate, with its magnificent Norman porch. This porch is considered one of the most outstanding examples of Norman architecture in America.

The ceiling of the Grand Masters Conference room is decorated with cherubs.

View of the Benjamin Franklin sitting room picturing the current Grand Master of Pennsylvania on the easel, R. W. Ronald A. Aungst. Sr.

The Grand Banquet Hall in the Masonic Temple can seat 400 persons. Decorations in the room are of the Composite order of architecture.

Egyptian Hall is ornamented in the style of the ancient monuments in the Nile Valley. Egyptologists have confirmed that the hieroglyphic texts are copies of actual ancient Egyptian inscriptions.

Gothic Hall is known as the Asylum of Knights Templars. The groins, pointed arches and pinnacles, all Gothic features, are predominant. The richly styled furniture is all hand carved.

This is the Grand Staircase! It is built of highly polished Tennessee marble. Beneath the staircase is the Seal of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania and a plaque encircled with representations of the four cardinal virtues.

Ionic Hall is an architectural creation which is a classic study in refinement and elegance.

Nancy Love and Dean Kahn describe their preservation project of the George Washington Masonic Apron

Romanesque features are elaborately represented in Norman Hall. The term "Norman" applies to the round-arch architecture as found in this hall.

Renaissance Hall is dedicated to Capitular Masonry. Decorated in the Italian Renaissance style, the Hall is symbolically colored in brilliant scarlet. Grand Holy Royal Arch Chapter of Pennsylvania and subordinate Chapters meet here.

The Masonic Temple at Night. Taken with a time elapsed camera.

Located on Chestnut Street between 5th and 6th Streets. Constructed between 1732 and 1756 as the State House of the Province of Pennsylvania, it is considered a fine example of Georgian architecture. From 1775 to 1783 (except for the winter of 1777 - 1778 when Philadelphia was occupied by the British Army) this was the meeting place for the Second Continental Congress. It was in the Assembly Room of this building that George Washington was appointed commander in chief of the Continental Army in 1775 and the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776. In the same room the design of the American flag was agreed upon in 1777, the Articles of Confederation were adopted in 1781, and the U. S. Constitution was drafted in 1787. The building, inside and out, has been restored whenever possible to its original late-18th century appearance. Most of the furnishing are period pieces. The "rising sun" chair used by George Washington as he presided over the Constitutional Convention is original.

Dave Lettelier and Alan Reeves posing for a picture! Jerry Stotler can be seen in the reflection of the window taking the picture!

You simply come in the door and tell the cook what ingredients you want on your cheese steak and he cooks it to order!

You can eat downstairs, but there is a large dining room with additional seating upstairs!

Our tour was conducted this morning by Greta Greenberger, Coordinator of City Hall Tours.

City Hall is directly across the street from the Masonic Temple. Designed by John McArthur, Jr. (1823-1890), it was built in the Second Empire style between 1871 and 1901. Brother Thomas Ustick Walter (1804-1887, Designer of the U.S. Capitol) was consulting architect until his death in 1887). City Hall is said to be the largest public masonry building in the world. Without a steel frame, the walls at the first floor are 22 feet thick to support the seven 16 foot floors above. The central tower reaches a height of 511 feet. It is topped by a 37-foot, 27-ton bronze statue of William Penn by Alexander Milne Calder (1846-1923); by far the largest statue, it is, however, just one of the 250 made for both the interior and exterior of the building. The more than 600 rooms are organized around a central courtyard; many were lavishly decorated by Brother George Herzog. The cornerstone of City Hall was laid in a full Masonic ceremony by Right Worshipful Grand Master Alfred R. Potter (1817-1881, Grand Master 1874-1875) on July 4th 1874.

Taking the train from Old City Hall to 5th Street Station - Independence Hall

Pictured here is the Henry Charles Lea Library removed from his house and transplanted to the 6th floor Inside the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center at the University of Pennsylvania

An Orrery at the University of Penn Library.

An Orrery is a mechanical model of the solar system that illustrates the relative positions and motions of the planets and moons in the solar system in heliocentric model. They are typically driven by a large clockwork mechanism with a globe representing the Sun at the centre, and with a planet at the end of each of the arms. This orrery was built by David Rittenhouse.

A normal mechanical clock could be used to produce an extremely simple Orrery with the Sun in the centre, Earth on the minute hand and Jupiter on the hour hand; Earth would make 12 revolutions around the Sun for every 1 revolution of Jupiter. Note however that Jupiter's actual year is 11.86 Earth years long, so this particular example would lose accuracy rapidly. A real Orrery would be more accurate and include more planets, and would perhaps make the planets rotate as well.

Orreries are sometimes referred to as planetariums, although generally, planetariums are hemispherical theatres in which images of the night sky are projected onto an overhead surface. Orreries can range widely in size from hand-held to room-sized.

The first Orrery was built in 1713 by George Graham. He was supported (as a patron) by Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery, and thus the name. Orreries are usually not built to scale.

Similar to a Tellurion which is a mechanical device that depicts how day, night and the seasons are caused by the movement of the Earth on its axis and around the sun. An outer ring shows the signs of the zodiac and the months.

Washington Square, originally designated in 1682 as Southeast Square, is an open-space park in Center City Philadelphia's Southeast quadrant and one of the five original planned squares laid out on the city grid by William Penn. It is part of both the Washington Square West and Society Hill neighborhoods.

During the 18th century, the Square was used to graze animals and as a potter's field. During the Revolutionary War, the square was used as a burial ground for citizens and troops from the Colonial army.

After the Revolution, victims of the city's yellow fever epidemics were interred here, and the square was used for cattle markets and camp meetings. Improvement efforts began in 1815, as the neighborhoods around the square were developed and became fashionable. In 1825, the park was named Washington Square in tribute to George Washington and a monument to Washington was proposed. This monument was never built but served as the seed for the eventual tribute to soldiers of the Revolutionary War. The Curtis Building sits to the north of the park, a remnant of Philadelphia's publishing industry.

During a 1952 renovation of the square, it was decided that, instead of the original proposed monument to Washington, a monument to all soldiers and sailors of the Revolutionary War would be built. The monument was designed by architect G. Edwin Brumbaugh.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier memorial is located within the square. The bodies of an unknown number of soldiers remain buried beneath the square and the surrounding area; some are still occasionally found during construction and maintenance projects.