Elk Lodge No 293 - Camden, NJ
N 39° 56.785 W 075° 07.052
18S E 489959 N 4421816
84-year old building which marks the very beginning of downtown Camden along historic Cooper St. Today the building is used for education, being part of Rutgers LEAP Charter School. There is much relief art to admire along the front facade.
Waymark Code: WM7YNV
Location: New Jersey, United States
Date Posted: 12/23/2009
Views: 4
There is an extensive history of the Lodge located HERE, however, this waymark will concern itself with their history while residing in this building.
There are twenty plus buildings just like this one, built the same time as this one on the NRHP. Curiously, this one is not protected and was never placed on the NRHP. The cornerstone at the front right corner, low to the ground, marks the construction date as 1925. I could not tell if it was a separate granite block or simply part of the entire granite facade and merely made to look like a separate block. The building has a stone bottom which gives rise to a brick building. Over the front entrance is amazing relief work, what looks like a baskets overflowing with fruit at the top of the entrance. Originally, this building housed the Camden Elks so perhaps there is some kind of symbolic connection. The best relief work can be found at the top of the two Corinthian columns flanking the entrance. Absolutely gorgeous!
I found a narrative on this building created by Phil Cohen on a fabulous website created by him which has secured and protected the history of late 18th, 19th and 20th century Camden. It is the most comprehensive site I have ever seen for Camden and for Camden County. The entire listing includes al history of this lodge. I have only included an excerpt while the lodge was housed in this building.
On April 1, 1925 Ground was broken on by the Camden Lodge of Elks for its new home at 807 Cooper Streets. A series of stores were built about 1926, one of which was occupied by Horn & Hardart for many, many years, on the site. A new Elks home was completed on Cooper Street, above Broadway, in May of 1926. The Elks remained at that location into the 1960s, when falling membership brought on by changes in American society and in part by conditions in Camden saw the organization leave the city. sometime after 1967. The hall was also made available to other organizations such as Camden Post 980, Veterans of Foreign Wars.
SOURCE
In the late 1990s the former Elks Lodge became the home of the LEAP Academy Charter School. In 2004 the original Elks Home is the site of a strip of small shops, while the Cooper Street Elks Home still houses the LEAP Academy charter school.