- This is not a public building.

This was a building with a public presence but not a public building just through its sheer size It was one of the great landmarks of Philadelphia.

- Here's the highest point of the Masonic couple here, One North Broad.

From this vantage point, you can see New Jersey and also behind us is, city hall - Thurgood Marshall, Duke Ellington, who was a Mason Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole.

If you pulled out a history book of African-Americans I can actually be able to.

So Mason, Mason, Mason - The one that they call him the most is George Washington.

- It's hard to see here, but in the mirrored case behind it if you look at the back there was a piece of glass and there's a lock of hair there which is allegedly George Washington's hair, this sash in the case next to be belonged to brother Benjamin Franklin and was used during his time as our minister to Paris during the revolutionary war.

- It's an old tradition, like a fraternity, and it sort of sets the stage for men to be able to talk to other men.

Our motto is to make good men better.

The secret of Freemasonry is there are no secrets.

All of the things that we do in our meetings including the ritual can be found on the internet.

Sometimes it's not exactly correct, but the general gist of it's there contrary to popular belief you can visit the Masonic temple here at One North Broad - Third in command The junior warden would be sitting in the south symbolizing the sun at noon in the west the senior warden symbolizing the setting sun and finally the worshipful master in the east symbolizing the rising sun, light and knowledge.

But all you have to understand that are wishful masters.

The leader of the lodge hardly ever sit down so they could go for the Royal look because they don't really use it.

But this one is particularly odd because in order for your feet to touch the ground, you'd have to be a giant.

Egyptian hall was the first room decorated.

They started in the tail end of 1888 and the room was dedicated in 1889.

Oh, it is quite accurate down to the Egyptian writings that can be translated.

Egypt is featured because of medieval stonemasons in England thought that geometry was invented there.

The art of building a geometry there's always been a very prestigious branch of knowledge.

They felt it gave you a glimpse into the mind of God through discovering the secrets of nature through geometry always on the alter, you will find the three great lights of Freemasonry, a square encompass, and the book of sacred laws.

A candidate will kneel there facing the worshipful master.

And there is where we take our oaths and obligations including binding ourselves to secrecy.

The stonemasons who we imitated were very desirous of protecting their trade secrets.

So they took oaths not to reveal the art of building a command knew were not stonemasons.

So that's partly where we get our secrecy from.

- In the Masonic symbol You'll see a square accomplice in the letter G and each of those represents moral lesson.

The square teaches us to be fair and square in our regular dealings in life.

Of course, the level's not meant as one of our symbols with the level is just to be on level with everybody accomplished control, perfect circle.

And it reminds us to sort of keep our morality and within those bounds of that perfect circle and the letter G has actually twofold meaning One is for geometry And then the second lesson in that is God there's a single creator looks after all of us.

All masons must believe in a God, a Supreme being but that path is Supreme being is your own choice in the lodge We'll offer prayers, but each individual Mason in the room can pray to his own deity Within these prayers are very general.

There's no discussion of two things in a lodge, religion and politics.

Politics can be divisive at times, regardless of political affiliation, people are people and, you know good people are good people.

Their political affiliation has nothing to do with moral character.

- Who would you say have been some of the more notable members of the organization throughout history?

- The one that they call him the most is George Washington Benjamin Franklin, Voltaire and more modern times there was presidents president Ford, Buzz Aldrin, the astronaut our previous mayor and governor Randell.

Freemasonry has its roots in England And from that grand lodge of England, all the grand lodges throughout the world were born - Early Masonic meetings in Philadelphia as well.

They were in England were held in taverns.

The very first one was the Tun Tavern, which was located on what is now south front street taverns were tuitional with gathering places for many groups for many different purposes.

So it was natural for them to go meet there Plus you also had fruit and beverage available at the end of your meeting.

They also met at the Indian Head Tavern and the Royal Standard Tavern, which were located up on what is now market street.

And for a time right around the years of the revolutionary war in the old city Tavern the first building was built in 1755.

And it was not just the first in Philadelphia It was also the first in the Western hemisphere dedicated specifically for the use of a Masonic lodge or Masonic red lodge meeting places.

They also for a time met in independence hall because after the revolutionary war, they had to sell the first building because money was tight.

And after the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, they gave away so much money to help support the widows and orphans of members who had been struck down during the pandemic that they couldn't afford a meeting place anywhere.

- So when exactly do we see the first construction of an actual temple built here in Philadelphia?

- Well, the first one opened in 1811 on Chestnut street between seventh and eighth street.

And one of the reasons they had to start building bigger and bigger buildings was because membership kept growing and growing.

It would have been impossible to hold a lodge meeting in the loft of a Tavern anymore.

Now that building was used until 1819 when a fire and a fireplace burning the whole place down they immediately set to rebuild it and it opened again in 1820.

- This is ionic hall named after the Greek columns first used around 1200 BC and what is now the Aegean coast of Turkey Greek colonies there if you look up at the ceiling you have the sun at high noon, surrounded by the Zodiac signs in a, another form, not the animals or figures that we usually see.

And here you have the planetary signs framed by two seals of Solomon of that is actually an alchemical formula.

Origins are found in the legends of King Solomon's temple was King Solomon being one of our first grand masters or traits are of our past grandmasters.

- Each Jurisdiction has one, what they call grand master, who you would think of as a president and CEO of the organization and he makes the rules for his own jurisdiction.

Our grand master will be Pennsylvania New Jersey has their own grand master Delaware their own grand master for the area.

At the local level, it would be the leader of a lodge called Worshipful master.

In Pennsylvania, there are about 400 lodges and 90,000 members and it's one of the larger jurisdictions.

There are different customs and traditions for each country but the central theme and the allegory is the same throughout the world.

That's what binds us together.

- It gives me a sort of a sense of belonging with the wider population of folks out there.

And everybody comes from all different walks of life and we're all on equal footing.

The fundamental truth for the organization.

That is the core of who we are, is to make good men better.

We know that we'll never be perfect but the journey is to strive to be a better human being.

- This is Corinthian hall named after this type of column the third and fanciest of the Greek columns.

This room is a home of the grand lodge of Pennsylvania.

You will see that the rug is made up of circles of green leaves or stars.

And this circle is missing a leaf or a star.

This rug was given to us in 1963 by the grand lodge of Puerto Rico.

And when they hand hooked it, they followed a Persian tradition that only Allah is perfect.

Only God is perfect.

This is the largest room, 106 feet long, 53 wide 52 high.

The young ladies are called caryatids.

C-A-R-Y-A-T-I-D-S anytime you have a female form used as a column, it's a caryatid.

And our young ladies are modeled after the very famous ones that can be found on the Acropolis near the Parthenon.

- Are women are allowed to be members?

And if not why?

- Within the world global, there are comasonary.

which has female Freemasons here in Pennsylvania We do not and the reasons are similar to that of a college fraternity or a college sorority.

If our motto is to make good men better and you can generally learn from your junior and more experienced men in the fraternity - This was Gothic hall named after the first great medieval architectural movement that we think our stonemason ancestors worked upon.

Oh, it is home to the Knight Templar or branch of Freemason.

When you can join after you become a Mason and their name is derived from those famous fighting monks in the holy land who were some of the best fighters of the crusades.

However, modern scholarship suggests that we really don't have an historical link with these knights a candidate will kneel there facing the worshipful master.

And there is where we take our oaths and obligations including binding ourselves to secrecy.

- There are yes, secrets So things like modes of recognition, there's not many all of the things that we do in our meetings including the ritual can be found in the internet.

Sometimes it's not exactly correct, but the general gist of it's there.

If we were a secret society, we wouldn't have this building prominently displayed in the middle of a major city.

We wear rings and we wear jewelry that show where masons square incompetence, so we can recognize each other.

So those outward symbols generally don't keep us as a secret society or that are, were horrible at keeping secrets.

The three stages of Freemasonry or three degrees are the entered apprentice, which is the first degree the Fellowcraft, which is the second degree and the master mason, which is third degree in each degree a moral lesson is taught in the first degree you're taught about your community.

And the second degree you're taught as part of the larger community.

Then a third degree is the final lesson piece of morality.

It start your journey to be better members of society.

The distinction is when you're a master Mason or third degree you're permitted to have a vote and a say in a meeting.

- There is still a shock when I tell people that the grand lies of Pennsylvania have black members I would say at this point we may have about 150 members of the grand lodge lease.

And I'm also the prince hall Mason.

Our Prince Hall Freemasonry is predominantly African-American but we accept members of all races, creeds, and colors.

There was certain things in my particular path that I wanted to pursue that I could not, or I felt that I could not pursue just being a Prince Hall Mason.

So, I feel as though product of both Prince Hall was an abolitionist, he was a member of the free black society of Boston, He was also an advocate of the back to Africa movement.

And in 1775, he was initiated into Freemasonry.

At that particular time in the country black men could not join a Caucasian lodges.

The first lies was in Boston, it's African lodge number 4 59 a minister by the name Reverend Absalom Jones.

He visited the Boston lodge and he had a desire for it to expand to Philadelphia.

Their lives was expanded.

It was called the African lodge 4 59 of Philadelphia There's 4,600 lodges.

There's 300,000 prince hall Freemasons throughout the world.

- This is Oriental hall.

In this case, Oriental just means Eastern.

And the details of this room have all been copied from different sections of the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain, in the south of Spain, but be not deceived by the Spanish location of the Alondra is actually a magnificent example of north African Islamic architecture.

- What do you think is probably the biggest myth that people have about Freemasonry?

- Oh, or that we either are attempting to take over the world or have already succeeded but have been very clever and discreet about it.

We have a lot of Russian visitors and they're convinced you have to be elite, I guess in Russia, that must be this conception that only the wealthy or the people who have influenced become masons.

- We welcome all walks of life One of the benefits of being a Freemason is that when you walk into a room, everybody is equal.

Your brother is your brother whether it's the president of the United States or anybody.

- Well, The one that were linked was the Illuminati was a big favorite and the difficulty of answering that one is we are tiny little bit back in the 18th century.

- The myths are that you can never go inside the Masonic lodge, which of course we have tours in the Masonic lodge right here in One North Broad in Philadelphia, PA. - Well, this is Renaissance hall named after that explosion of art and architecture that swept across Europe, roughly between the 14th and 16th centuries.

The details of this room have all been copied from different churches in villas and Italy, up here to the left, Moses and next to him, King Solomon, and across the way Hiram King of Tyre, what is now Lebanon, a friend and ally of King Solomon.

It has said he helped King Solomon build the first temple in Jerusalem by providing workers and materials such as the Cedar wood of Lebanon and next to him Hiram Abiff the widow's son, the architect of King Solomon time.

- This building took five years to build but by saying this building took five years to build.

We're really only talking about the masonry shell of it the elaborate rooms inside it, or still being built through the 1890s with different designers in charge of them, both as a process and as a product the building is a Testament to Masonic principles.

The shaping of each block had to be overseen and approved by the masons.

They saw this building as a monument to themselves and again, they wanted to see Masonic principles upheld in every part of its construction.

The architect, James Hamilton Windrim, wasn't Mason was Philadelphia's public architect par excellence in the last third of the 19th century Philadelphia was on the move at the time this building was built around the year 1870.

This is post-Civil war Philadelphia and crucially post consolidation, Philadelphia.

That meant a massive growth in bureaucracy which had people talking about relocating city hall from the independence hall area over to the center of the city, this area by the civil war era it was pretty clear that chestnut and market street were going to be commercial streets primarily.

And that north broad street was going to be a kind of Carter of civic institutions of various kinds just through its sheer size it is one of the great landmarks of Philadelphia.

If you drive through center city, this building and city hall strike you as something from a bygone world.

So there's the kind of public presence of the building which makes it important.

It's also important in the history of Philadelphia is growth as a city and in the history of Philadelphia architecture as a profession.

- This is Norman hall it basically just means Romanesque the first of the great medieval European architectural movements.

- This building was designed in what most architectural historians would now call Romanesque, but in the 1850s sixties and seventies, this building would absolutely have been called Norman by the architectural community a kind of architecture that is sort of proto Gothic.

It dates from the early middle ages it's associated with Northern France, and it focuses on heavily ornamented round arches.

Everything about it seems oversized it's ornament which is very super bold and sort of overscaled it just feels big.

It also feels a bit like a stage set conceived of more in the flat but in the round.

So even though it's an asymmetrical building with a big impressive tower on it, there is a kind of stiffness or flatness to it that I think you can see when you walk around it.

- So now I'm about to enter the base of the one staircase that takes us to the highest point of the temple which is our south tower.

Lets start our journey.

Throughout the tower, if you pay close attention to the bricks you'll actually see the Workman in this temple at different times of the construction actually left their name and the year.

Today, It's a beautiful day.

We have a beautiful view of the city.

- Just as we talked about the outside of the building in keeping with Masonic ideas of how you build a so the inside of the building needs to be seen as a kind of lesson in historical styles, especially for masons the people who saw the interior.

Well, what does go on in the inside obviously Masonic rituals, which are fraternal in nature and often meant to sort of draw on a whole cast of imagined pasts from ancient Egypt through the middle ages and beyond the rooms are partly a stage set for that But they're also meant to be lessons in historical styles.

We should mention George Herzog as the interior designer of the first phase of this building who I think is responsible for the kind of theatricality of the building on its inside.

- These great murals were done by George Herzog and for whatever reasons he put deliberate errors in them, for lack of a better word, the one straight ahead says Rome, 500 BC but almost everyone thinks it looks more like the Parthenon in Athens than it does Rome.

And here the one that says Versailles 1700 would bring to mind Louis the 14th, the sun king and his magnificent palace of Versailles but has nothing to do is Louie or Versailles.

The two prominent figures are English Dukes the Duke of Montagu and the Duke of Wharton and architecture is actually from Frederick the Great, summer palace in Potsdam, Germany.

- The library and museum are critical for us because one of the things that we believe as masons is to better ourselves in liberal arts.

- There's always been an interest in having a books and a library in the grand lodge.

And then when this building was founded and built there was a room dedicated to a library.

It's almost masonically related.

We have biographies of prominent pre masons.

We have the history of Freemasonry art, architecture, philosophy information on the more esoteric branches of the fraternity, Cultism, religion Anybody is welcome to come in and use the library They could read what we need to do research on the fraternity or on a history on the building.

They're more than welcome to come in.

- The primary focus of the museum is as you can probably expect Freemasonry specifically as it pertains to Pennsylvania and or Philadelphia, the most notable items, one of George Washington's Masonic aprons which was presented to him by the Marquis de Lafayette sometime in the 1780s, it's reported that he wore this at the lane of the cornerstone for the present Capitol in Washington, DC.

I'm not really sure about that one, but this was presented to us in 1829 by the Washington benevolent association of Philadelphia.

- Mason's wear aprons and that goes back to the story retail of the construction of King Solomon's temple in Jerusalem it's an allegory used and the aprons were important to masons back at that time.

And apprentice would carry things, generally masons at least in Pennsylvania have white leather and lambskin apron and it has a blue trim around it but the officers have a symbol of their possession.

The worshipful master of the head will have a square.

The senior warden will have a level and the junior warden will have a plum.

The dress code for Pennsylvania Freemasons is a suit and tie, and the officers are required to wear a tuxedos.

- In the archives here, we have a collection, it'd be either written material or things that are important to masons like the Masonic aprons we wear.

We have things that go back to the battlefields in civil war and just things from the, from the earliest meetings of the organization before this building was even built.

- Another interesting thing that I did find is the death mask of one of our grand treasurers whose name is Thomas R. Patton.

And it actually has a hook on the back.

So it can be hung up for display.

- This is the ballroom banquet hall And a couple of years ago when we started having weddings and receptions we put in this huge bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin.

You know, you put the curtains in in case of bride does not wish to share her evening with Ben - One North broad is our venue here The weddings here are just magical.

And also we have cooperate events - Also, of interest are the Rush statues here faith, hope and charity.

William Rush was one of the very famous early American sculptor stained glass windows.

They are four of the 14 American presidents that have been Freemasons.

- Freemason's engaged in a number of charitable activities either by their volunteer work or financial support.

One such group is the Shriner's Hospital Every Shriner is actually a Mason.

Its a prerequisite.

Another is our Masonic villages, which is a retirement community that takes somebody from when they enter all the way through hospice care or Masonic homes to take children who are generally disadvantaged and give them opportunity to receive a first-class education and also live in a house.

We also have an organization called the Pennsylvania Masonic youth foundation that brings youth groups together educates them on topics, such as public speaking, manners grooming and everything that you might've wanted to develop a young leader for.

And that's both young men and young women.

- Where does this room kind of fair on tours?

- Oh, by far just a favorite.

I mean, may seem odd medication.

We have to close a room down for repairs and Egyptians The only one that people snarled It's the only reason I came here.

Now you can tell them that Normal Hall is off and they go, well, that's fine there's six others.

- Oh, I invite anybody to come out and you won't regret it.

It's one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen.

The secret of Freemasonry is there are no secrets.