密歇根新闻广播 底特律共济会会所背后的故事

Ypsilanti's Sue Webster visited the Detroit Masonic Temple twice (once for the Theatre Bizarre masquerade, and once for a lecture). Her visits piqued¹ her curiosity, so she posed her question to our MI Curious project.

"There must have been a huge presence at the Masonic Temple in Detroit at one time. What was it all about?"

Detroit's Masonic Temple is a gray stone building that towers over Cass Park.

Inside, it is decadent².

The ceilings are painted, the bathrooms are overflowing³ with marble and the are wooden phone booths decorated with swirling⁴ hand carved flourishes. They don't have phones in them anymore though.

Finding our way inside the Masonic Temple

Sue and I went to the Masonic Temple to meet with John Snider, the Temple's docent. We found him in the Temple's library, sitting comfortably in plush armchair, smoking a cigar.

On either side of him were two large windows with red curtains, the rest of the room filled with stacks of flaking⁵ maps and books. The other worldliness of the scene was interrupted only when his cell phone pinged.

He told us to pull up a chair, and then let us pepper him with questions.

How many rooms are there in this building? Is there really a pool? What even is a mason? And how did they have enough money back in the day to pay for this place?

"It's not a simple answer," he began. "You're assuming traditions that apply now, that did not apply then."

That's kind of how all of John Snider's answers start, and then they wind through history, astrology, geometry, philosophy. He questions your assumptions and pulls out obscure historical knowledge about the Michigan-Ohio border dispute.

Basically it comes down to this

There were a lot of freemasons in the 20s because it was just the thing to do.

"It was something people did before we had radio, before we had television," said Joel Stone, chief curator at the Detroit Historical Society. "People would go out and talk to each other."

He said there were a bunch of these kind of social clubs in Detroit back in the day. Some were secretive like the freemasons, some weren't.

Men were usually part of a couple different groups, so obviously many big Detroit names (Lewis Cass, Augustus Woodward, Henry Ford) were all freemasons.

This was also Detroit at its prime, so there was a lot of money in the city. Just like today, the temple was always open to the public to host events.

They knew they had to in one way or another pay for this building so they included the ballrooms⁶ where lots and lots of big events have been held," said Stone.

At least, until the depression hit

After that, particularly in the 50s and 60s, people stopped coming to the Temple as much. Stone says the Cass Corridor became Detroit's skid⁷ row after the Black Bottom neighborhood was bulldozed to make way for I-75.

He said the Temple "suffered badly from that."

Today the area is on an upswing, but the Masonic temple has rumors⁸ floating around it. Mostly that it's haunted.

Part of that probably has to do with the mysterious organization that built it.

Sue told me she'd heard of the Masons, but never really knew what it was they did or do. She knew they were maybe kind of secret. There were movies about them.

But here's the thing: the masons aren't exactly hiding.

As Alex Lundberg, a freemason who wrote a book about the Temple, puts it: they "are a vastly secret organization with a fourteen-story building on Temple avenue."

Snider says they're not secret, they're just private. He'll answer most anything, you just have to ask. It's just that not many of us think to.

And the questions they won't answer? It's mostly about the specifics of their lectures and teachings … but it sounds like the gist⁹ of it is just how to be an upstanding dude.

"The secrets are more mundane¹⁰ than you would think," Lundgren said. "There is no weather machine."

Sometimes the idea of a secret is just a lot more exciting than the secret itself.

1 piqued   

v.伤害…的自尊心( pique的过去式和过去分词 )；激起（好奇心）

参考例句：

• Their curiosity piqued, they stopped writing. 他们的好奇心被挑起，停下了手中的笔。 来自辞典例句
• This phenomenon piqued Dr Morris' interest. 这一现象激起了莫里斯医生的兴趣。 来自辞典例句

2 decadent   

adj.颓废的，衰落的，堕落的

参考例句：

• Don't let decadent ideas eat into yourselves.别让颓废的思想侵蚀你们。
• This song was once banned, because it was regarded as decadent.这首歌曾经被认定为是靡靡之音而被禁止播放。

3 overflowing   

n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The stands were overflowing with farm and sideline products. 集市上农副产品非常丰富。
• The milk is overflowing. 牛奶溢出来了。

4 swirling   

v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Snowflakes were swirling in the air. 天空飘洒着雪花。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• She smiled, swirling the wine in her glass. 她微笑着，旋动着杯子里的葡萄酒。 来自辞典例句

5 flaking   

刨成片，压成片； 盘网

参考例句：

• He received ointment for his flaking skin. 医生给他开了治疗脱皮的软膏。
• The paint was flaking off the walls. 油漆从墙上剥落下来。

6 ballrooms   

n.舞厅( ballroom的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• It was performed in fashionable Casino ballrooms. 人们在时髦的娱乐舞厅里跳这种舞蹈。 来自互联网
• Some settled into ballrooms or theaters or hotels for weeks or months at a time. 有的乐队在舞厅、剧院或旅馆作数月甚至数月的逗留。 来自互联网

7 skid   

v.打滑 n.滑向一侧；滑道 ，滑轨

参考例句：

• He braked suddenly,causing the front wheels to skid.他突然剎车，使得前轮打了滑。
• The police examined the skid marks to see how fast the car had been travelling.警察检查了车轮滑行痕迹，以判断汽车当时开得有多快。

8 rumors   

n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷

参考例句：

• Rumors have it that the school was burned down. 有谣言说学校给烧掉了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Rumors of a revolt were afloat. 叛变的谣言四起。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 gist   

n.要旨；梗概

参考例句：

• Can you give me the gist of this report?你能告诉我这个报告的要点吗？
• He is quick in grasping the gist of a book.他敏于了解书的要点。

10 mundane   

adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的

参考例句：

• I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作，而不是一份平凡无奇的。
• I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的，即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。