VA -- Alexandria -- George Washington Masonic Natl Memorial:
- Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.
- Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon
underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.
- Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
- Accessing as Spider: The system has identified your IP as being a spider.
IP Address: 3.141.100.120 -- Domain: Amazon Technologies
I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.
- Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]
|
[1]
 MASON_970912_01.JPG
|
[2] MASON_970912_05.JPG
|
[3] MASON_970912_11.JPG
|
[4] MASON_970912_15.JPG
|
[5] MASON_970912_18.JPG
|
[6] MASON_970912_20.JPG
|
[7] MASON_970912_22.JPG
|
[8] MASON_970912_24.JPG
|
[9] MASON_970912_26.JPG
|
[10] MASON_970912_29.JPG
|
[11] MASON_970912_31.JPG
|
[12] MASON_970912_33.JPG
|
[13] MASON_970912_35.JPG
|
[14] MASON_970912_37.JPG
|
[15] MASON_970912_39.JPG
|
[16] MASON_970912_41.JPG
|
[17] MASON_970912_43.JPG
|
- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- 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 on-hand funds and donations- no loans were made for the construction. The design commission was awarded to the New York architectural firm of Helmle and Corbett. Designed in the classical style, the entrance is Doric, while the interior of the main hall (Memorial Hall) is Composite. The tower sections are Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The tower is capped with an Egyptian pyramid, and capped with a flame-like finial, as a homage to the lighthouse of Alexandria. All the murals inside were done by a single artist, Allyn Cox.
Rooms and levels:
There are ten floors from basement to the top; select rooms are used for the public guided tour. The fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth and ninth are all furnished by Masonic appendant bodies, in particular the York Rite, Grotto, and Tall cedars of Lebanon
First floor:
The First Floor contains three large, distinct areas: the Shrine Rooms, Assembly Hall, and Dining Rooms. The Shrine Rooms are dedicated to the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Shriners, who have established orthopedic hospitals and burn centers for children. The Assembly Hall is in the center space of the first floor, with eight New Hampshire green granite columns eighteen feet tall. Around the room are dioramas depicting scenes from the life of George Washington. This room also contains an animatronic George Washington owned by the Scottish Rite. The Assembly Hall (South Lodge Room) is used by the Alexandria-Washington Lodge No. 22 and other visiting Masonic lodges. The North Lodge room is used by the Andrew Jackson Lodge No. 120 and other appendant Masonic organizations.
On April 4th and 5th scenes were shot inside the Assembly Hall for National Treasure: Book of Secrets, which will be acting as the Smithsonian Institution in the film.
- Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
- Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
- Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].
