http://www.antonnews.com/oysterbayenterprisepilot/2003/10/31/news/

Matinecock Lodge Demolished After Fire
Smoke was still curling up from the left-hand side of the lodge. On the left, firemen are climbing the aerial ladder so that they can tie lines to it and drag it down into the center of the building. The third floor and attic area were a large open area where the Masonic Temple was located.
Many Artifacts Saved, Masons Promise to Rebuild the Lodge
By Dagmar Fors Karppi

There is nothing left of the Matinecock Lodge building at 14 West Main Street in Oyster Bay but a pile of rubble surrounded by chain link fencing. The fencing was just recently used to guard the new walkway being created from Audrey Avenue to West Main Street as part of a town revitalization project. Although the lodge was lost to fire on Saturday morning, Oct. 25, the Masons promise that it will rise like a Pheonix from the ashes left behind.

The Matinecock Lodge was ablaze early Saturday morning, Oct. 25, when the fire company received an alarm for smoke that was detected on East Main Street at about 2:30 a.m. They didn't get the address with the information but were quickly able to find the fire on Main Street, said Oyster Bay Fire Company No. 1 First Assistant Chief Anthony DeCarolis. Atlantic Steamer Fire Company Chief Richard Warner and First Assistant Chief DeCarolis were in charge of fighting the fire.

The actual timeline and cause of the fire is being investigated. O.B.F. Co. 1 First Assistant Chief Anthony DeCarolis said, "According to the fire marshal, they believe the fire was electrical in nature and started in the basement.

A neighbor across the street reported hearing an explosion and I reported that to the fire marshal on Sunday," he said. "We estimated the fire started about four hours before we were alerted. When the first firefighters went into the building the floor was already burned through. It was a very significantly advanced fire. Our guess is that it began sometime around 10:30 to 11 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 24."

Fire Marshal Joe Whittaker said on Monday, Oct. 27, that the cause of the fire is still undetermined. He said the report of someone hearing an explosion could be explained by the windows coming out. "The force of the fire blowing out the windows can sound like an explosion. The windows are the weakest part of the building. There were investigators looking at the basement on Monday, so the case of the fire is still undetermined," he repeated.

Mr. De Carolis said when they got 15 to 20 feet inside the building they realized a substantial part of the floor had collapsed into the basement. He said the fire started in the basement and went to the first floor and up to the second floor. "The floor was spongy and moving and way too unstable," he said. He explained the "balloon" construction of the walls left them open from the basement all the way to the top floor. "If you drop a quarter it goes down to the basement and the same with the fire, it goes all the way to the top floor. The lodge was built of older wood, drier wood and very heavily constructed as older buildings were. It had very large structural members in the basement, that were already burned through when we arrived. They were dry, but they were big," he explained.

When they arrived at the scene, one of their priorities was to protect the two landmark buildings next to the lodge. They hosed down Raynham Hall Museum to the west and Snouder's Corner Drug Store to the east. All three buildings are Town of Oyster Bay Landmarks.

About 14 fire companies from the Fifth Battalion fought the blaze including the Atlantic Steamer, Oyster Bay Fire Company No. 1, East Norwich, Sea Cliff, Cold Spring Harbor, Glenwood Landing, Jericho, Hicksville, Locust Valley, Bayville and Syosset companies.

"It was a long night," said one of the firemen.

Someone nearby commented, "It's a shame. That was a good-looking building."

The Matinecock Lodge is a Town of Oyster Bay Landmark, as are the two buildings surrounding it, Raynham Hall Museum to the west and Snouder's Corner Drugstore to the east. One of the concerns in fighting the fire was to see that it didn't spread to the other historic buildings, so they hosed down both sites and kept a watch on them.

The Matinecock Lodge is also a Masonic Museum that is visited by Masons from around the country. Luckily, the firemen were responsive to the importance of the artifacts and went into the building, while it was burning to retrieve many of the items.

One of the items lost was a painting of Theodore Roosevelt on horseback; he was a member of the lodge. Matinecock Lodge Master Efraim Azamitia said, "This has been an absolute tragedy. We feel we've lost our home, but we are meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 5 for a Second Degree ceremony. We just had a Masonic First Degree ceremony and we had scheduled a Second Degree ceremony and we will now hold it at the donated Atlantic Steamer firehouse. The Masons have been here for 200 years. The firemen have been angels of heaven," he said. "They went through the building while the fire was ablaze and picked through stuff upstairs and brought down our gavels and things we thought we lost. That includes the Theodore Roosevelt Bible. Everything is damaged and should take a lot of work. But we are feeling very positive about the club and the community's response."

He said when the firemen started bringing the artifacts out of the building the Masons formed a chain and passed the items along. They were saddened at the loss of the painting of TR, and said Master Azamitia, "All we have is a photograph of it."

Mason Warren Obes said, "We were able to salvage a lot of the artifacts. The Alantic Steamer Company let us lay the things out in one of their garage bays." They also offered their meeting room for their meetings. Mr. Obes said he got a call about the fire at 3 a.m. from Mason Norman Youngs who has a relative who is a fireman.

The Masons had nothing but praise for the firefighters who also salvaged the stained glass window that was in the east wall. The firemen sawed it out of the wooden frame and stabilized it with wood. Later in the day, Masons Mike Applequist and Deacon Tastensen were looking over the artifacts in the firehouse. Mr. Tastensen was glad their Masonic tools in their leather case were safe, and said of the tragedy, "Nobody got hurt. The lodge didn't burn, the building we met in did. We're well insured. We're not leaving Oyster Bay and we will try to reconstruct the same way but with modern safety features." The Matinecock Masonic Historic Society owns the building, the Masonic Lodge rented their location from them. The two entities are parts of the same parent organization.

Mr. Tastensen and Mr. Applequist were at the Atlantic Steamer firehouse Saturday around 5 p.m. covering the large nails protruding from the wood that was stabilizing the stained glass window with cardboard to prevent anyone from injuring their hands. Mr. Applequist said they had just gotten the window back from a restorer and said, they would return it to that shop to be repaired again. Although they don't have all the glass (at the moment) they believed it can be restored. About 60 percent of the window was intact, said John Hammond Matinecock Masonic Lodge historian.

Mr. Hammond said the artifacts they recovered were soot covered and water soaked. "The TR application is intact as is the Bible Mr. Roosevelt was inducted on. The firemen went into the building while it was still burning to get the artifacts out," said Mr. Hammond. The Masons kept mentioning the brave work of the firefighters and how much they appreciated their efforts on the Masons' behalf. Mason Bob Kelly credited firefighter Bob Gorney for carrying out the TR Bible. He said when the firemen arrived there was lots of smoke. Flames shot up from the chimneys on both sides of the building.

As they talked, Barbara and John Sheridan of Look Who's Cooking came out of their store with a tray of warm pretzels and a carton filled with cups of coffee for the firemen.

Standing nearby was the Monaghan family, Connie and Brian and their children J.J. and Brianne. He was holding up her shingle: "Constance Monaghan, P.T." that had been on the Active Motion sign outside the Matinecock Lodge, where the business was located. She said a co-worker called her at 10:30 a.m. to tell her about the fire. Ms. Monaghan said most of their paperwork was saved and they tried to get parts of their computers, but doubted they were able to do so. Later as the building was being razed, you could see the computer monitor framed in the empty window, after the porch was taken off the front of the building.

"It's such a loss," said Brian Monaghan. "Our children had their Christening and Communion parties downstairs at the lodge." The lodge was used as a catering facility by members of the community.

Oyster Bay resident Brian Land of David Shuldiner, Inc. was watching the demolition work. His firm is in the architectural metal and glass business and does high rise construction office space and sometimes restores stained glass. His company was founded in 1888, so he had a feeling of affinity for the Matinecock Lodge as well as the demolition work going on. "We worked on a lot of buildings in the city after 9/11," he said. The missing pieces of the stained glass window he said would not be a problem, as long as they had a photograph to follow.

At about 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 25, First Assistant Chief Anthony DeCarolis said the fire was still going on in the basement. It was too hard to get to and too dangerous to do so. That was why the building was being demolished as Masons and local residents watched. The Town of Oyster Bay had assessed the situation and declared that the building had to come down. Town workers helped with the demolition work.

As the crowd watched, in the rear of the building payloaders were knocking down the back of the building and carrying the debris out to West Main Street where a large white Town of Oyster Bay refuse carting truck was being loaded. As history was poured into the dumpster it rumbled and shook. The debris from the fire was being carted by the Town of Oyster Bay to their Miller Place facility so that the Masons would be able to go through the material to see if they could rescue anything else. On Monday, Oct. 27, Masons were at the facility and sifting through the remainder of the debris as it was loaded onto trucks, reported Mr. DeCarolis. He said on Monday, Oct. 27, "The two Oyster Bay Fire Companies and the Town of Oyster Bay were able to salvage some of the memorabilia from the building. As late as 45 minutes ago, (about 11 a.m.) the fire department and the town were able to recover the VFW Post #8033 rifles. They were in an enclosure and were damaged but are believed to be salvageable. The rifles were found by OBF Co. No. 1 Second Assistant Chief Frank Mantegari, a town employee. The town was in charge of the demolition and removal and the fire company was there into Sunday because the fire was inaccessible and still burning as the demolition was going on," Mr. DeCarolis said.

Mason James Foote, a TR impersonator had been at the scene since 5:20 a.m. "There goes a historic structure." He said in a case like this TR would say: "Do the best you can with what you have where you are," and added, "This is what this lodge is going to do. Thank God for the Atlantic Steamer Company. They've got a lot of our stuff for us in one of their truck bays. That's community spirit," he said.

As the payloader worked at knocking down the building, the smell of burning wood became more prevalent. Standing by were men from the Fire Marshal's office. Fire Marshal Joseph Whittaker said they were not able to investigate the specific area where they believed the fire began. "The top has to go down. As long as it is up, we can't go inside." One of the problems in fighting the fire is that there are always fire pockets that they can't get at, he said.

Robert Crawford, a Vernon student was taking notes in preparation of writing an article for the school newspaper. He said when he arrived between 11 a.m. and noon there was smoke everywhere. Three hours after, he was still watching and taking snapshots. He caught a picture of one of the eastern brick chimney being pulled down by the payloader dragging the line.

Chris Bagan, in eighth grade at Oyster Bay High School arrived at the fire at 10 a.m. and said there was a lot of smoke. His father, firefighter Brian Bagan got to the fire at 8 a.m. "It's sad. It's a shame it happened," he said. Sitting there he watched the historic demolition of the Oyster Bay landmark.

He too reported that they salvaged a lot of things that were being kept at the firehouse. "They were handing things from inside the building," he said. "It's amazing it's still burning. It's a shame, they just spent so much money on fixing it up."

He said the firemen tried to take the east chimney down with a sledgehammer. "Smoke was coming out of the chimney as they tried to knock it down," he said. That was when the decided to tie a hose-line around it to pull it down.

A payloader used the hose-line to pull down the front of the wall and the red seats that lined the north and south walls of the Masonic Temple on the third floor of the building were exposed. The red fabric of the seats was blackened. The red seats, linked together in a row, looked like a caterpillar suspended across the upper floor, said Chris Bagan.

By 5 p.m. the left side of the building was still standing and the two payloaders looked like two of TV's "Battle-Bots" fighting as they faced each other and charged at the front of the building. They demolished it, turned it into kindling and loaded it onto a town carting truck. At the scene, as more of the east side of the building was exposed, more smoke was rising from that side of the burning back area.

Three other organizations have lost their homes in the lodge. The lodge was used by the Oyster Bay VFW Post #8033, as well as two German lodges: the Trinity Lodge and the Socrates Lodge. The German lodges conduct their meetings in their native language to hold onto their traditions. They are the last German-speaking lodges to hold on to that, said Mr. Tasteson. Mr. Applequist said they can attend those meetings and still understand what is going on since they follow the same format.

They looked around the firehouse and talked about the artifacts which included a cornerstone from another lodge. "Cuban Masons gave a stone to the lodge in honor of TR, pre-Castro," said Mr. Applequist.

Standing in a pile were about a dozen copies of Matinecock Light, slightly water-damaged; the book on the Oyster Bay Masons was written by John Hammond. He will have several new chapters to add to the book.