VA -- Alexandria -- George Washington Masonic Natl Memorial:
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MASON_970912_01.JPG: George Washington Masonic Natl Memorial
This 333-foot-tall landmark is in Alexandria Virginia. It was modeled after the ancient lighthouse at Alexandria, Egypt. One of the rooms contains the original furnishings of Alexandria Lodge No 22, the lodge in Alexandria over which Washington was the first Worshipful Master under Virginia charter. Personally, I find it kind of disturbing to think of the nation's founder walking around with the little Masonic apron but maybe that's just me.
The highlight of the hour-long tour of this place is the 5-minute view from atop the building which gives you a nice view of Alexandria. The building is very tall and it sits atop one of the tallest hills in Alexandria (Shooter's Hill) so the view is wonderful. Unfortunately, it was overcast when I went up so the pictures didn't come out and it'll take awhile before I'm willing to endure the other 55 minutes of the tour to take some more shots.
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Wikipedia Description: George Washington Masonic National Memorial
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
George Washington Masonic National Memorial is a masonic lodge and memorial dedicated to the memory of George Washington, the first president of the United States of America and a Mason. George Washington belonged to Alexandria Lodge 22, and was named the lodge's Charter Master in 1788. Records of Washington presiding over the lodge are non-existent, possibly due to a fire at the lodge's original location in Alexandria's City Hall, which is where the lodge met until moving to the memorial in the early 1940s. Ground was broken in 1922, the Cornerstone laid in 1923; it was completed in 1932. It is located in Alexandria, Virginia atop Shuter's Hill (named after a union fort on the same location) and affords views of Alexandria and Washington, D.C. to the north. The tower is fashioned after the Lighthouse of Alexandria (Egypt), in part because of the town's namesake, and the masonic interest in great buildings of the ancient world. It is located where King Street leaves the Old Town district, makes a bend and starts up a long hill. The Memorial's proximity to both the King Street station of the Metro and to Amtrak's Alexandria passenger station, in recent decades has turned the property into a most strategic and valuable location.
The George Washington Masonic National Memorial is the only Masonic building supported and maintained by the 52 Grand Lodges of the United States. This is counter to common Masonic practice, where a building is only supported by the Grand Lodge of the state in which it resides. The building also houses the collection of the Alexandria Lodge, which contains most of the fraternal artifacts of George Washington, including: Watson and Catsoul Apron, Sash, Past Master portrait, Working Tools and Trowel used to lay the cornerstone at the United States Capitol.
Art and architecture:
The masons are master craftsmen, and the building was built entirely with o ...More...
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1997 photos: Since 1984, I've lived in Silver Spring, Maryland.
From 1981 to 2002, photos were taken using a Pentax ME Super camera.
From 1989 to 2002, I was doing all pictures as prints (instead of slides which I had grown up on).
In 1997, at the age of 40, my photo obsession began and I started taking thousands of photos per year.
In September, 2002, I switched to digital cameras and the number of photos exploded.
Image quality is going to be variable because these are scans of slides and/or prints.
The images shown here were scanned in two phases. In the early years of the website, I rescanned a selection of pre-digital images, all at fairly low quality settings. During the COVID pandemic, I launched the Great Rescanning Effort, rescanning ALL of my pre-digital images from various media (prints, slides, negatives, etc) at higher resolution and quality settings. Mutilple versions of images -- some from the initial scannning phase, some from prints, some from slides/negatives -- were posted so there are frequently duplicate images on the same page. At some point, I hope to have time to do a final review and get rid of the duplicates but that'll have to wait until all of the pre-digital images are finally posted.
Trips this year: North Carolina (Dad), Florida (Mom), using a time share in Arkansas to visit Civil War sites in Missouri, Georgia, Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. The Civil War became my excuse to see places I'd never been to in my life and it was a great motivator for 20 years or so.
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