MAPS AND DIRECTIONS

Updated: 20 March 2009

L O C A T I O N
The Jefferson Masonic Lodge building is located at 5418 West Gale Street, Chicago, Illinois, situated about one-half block west of the Jefferson Park Blue Line Train and Bus Terminal. (5400 West and about 4800 North)

We are located 8 miles NW of Chicago's central business district and just blocks from the Central Avenue Exit of Interstate 90.

GPS Coordinates: N41° 58.216': W87° 45.824''

On GOOGLE MAPS, strangely, if you enter '5364 West Gale Street' as the street address, you will see the correct location and thumbnail street view of the street level entrance at the left front corner of the building. Entrance is NOT available on the second level at the top of the steps.

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DRIVING DIRECTIONS
From points in the city as well as the suburbs or Ohare and Midway Airports, make your way via any interstate to U.S. 90. Exit at Exit 83A, Central Avenue. Travel SOUTH on Central Ave. roughly two blocks to Higgins Ave., turn left (east), traveling one block to Gale St, turn left (north) onto Gale Street. The lodge is located on the left (west) side of the street adjacent to the MacDonalds restaurant.

PARKING
Limited parking is available in the parking lot located to the left (south) of the building ONLY AFTER 5pm! Additional parking is generally found on Gale Street, Lester Avenue or Higgins Avenue. Please do NOT risk parking in the private bank, restaurant or residential lots near the lodge; you may inconvenience others or your transportation may be towed!

If no parking is available in the immediate vicinity of the lodge building, additional parking may be found in the Metra train station parking lot located approximately 500 feet north of the lodge. In order to access this lot, travel northwest from the intersection of Milwaukee Ave. and Gale St. about one city block (underneath the train overpass and above interstate 90). Turn right at the first available opportunity immediately beyond the overpass. The parking lot will be on your right. Conveniently, a tunnel and bridge exists south of this lot and which provides direct pedestrian access to the lodge.

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
If the CTA train is not readily available, you will find that many north-side city and suburban bus routes terminate at the Jefferson Park Terminal located one block northeast of the lodge building. This is also the JEFFERSON PARK BLUE LINE CTA train terminal. When traveling from the north lakeshore areas, connecting to the Foster Bus No. 92 at the Berwyn RED LINE station is recommended. This bus will deposit you at Gale Street on Milwaukee Ave. at the MacDonalds restaurant just a few hundred feet north of the lodge building.

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This image acquired by NASA's Orbview 2 reveals the Jefferson Masonic Temple beside Lake Michigan on the 24th day of April in 1999. Masonry's origins may be traced to northwestern Europe, visible here across the 'pond' on the horizon to the right. Examine the eastern seaboard here and those familiar with it will discern the little incursions of the Atlantic which define (from south to north) the Potomac River (beside it, the Federal City, Washington, D.C. under partly cloudy skies), the Delaware River (beside it, Bro. Benjamin Franklin's Philadelphia), the Long Island Sound (at it's western terminus, New Amsterdam, aka Bro. John Marshall's New York City), and Cape Cod / Boston Harbor (beside them, Bro. Paul Revere's Boston). Indeed, this vast territory essentially includes much of the territory of the Northern Jurisdiction of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of North America. It is equally true that the five great lakes combined contain the largest volume of fresh surface water on Earth, and as such are a unique and precious resource worthy of our respectful stewardship. Click on the image for a high resolution image of the horizon (in the lower left quadrant, notice the finger lakes and the dark green forested Adirondacks beyond it, and the elongated Lake Champlain further beyond.) Here, in one view from orbit, we see the stage on which the American Revolutionary War was won and a government "of the People, by the People, and for the People" became a reality.