Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/274

ONCE A CLOWN, ALWAYS A CLOWN is out of active existence. Edwin Forrest Lodge Number 2, formed in New York twenty-five years later, by Booth, Jefferson, Barrett, W. J. Florence, William H. Crane, William A. Brady, Otis Skinner, John Drew, F. F. Mackay, Milton Nobles and others, now has only sixty-five members, but it owns property worth more than one hundred thousand dollars. In its early years members sold their costumes to raise money to bury their dead, but many years ago William Harris, Senior, Frank Sanger, Louis Aldrich, Joseph Grismer and William A. Brady began buying New York downtown real estate on time in their lodge's behalf. One of the last houses owned by the order was Number 166 West Forty-seventh, where the Palace Theater now stands. When the Palace was built, the lodge bought across the street at Number 139. With a large house on their hands and little use for it, the members made an effort to attract the younger generation and organized the Green Room Club as a social subsidiary occupying the lower floors. But the younger actors failing to be attracted in numbers, the club was separated entirely from the lodge, and the lower floors rented to the club. Eventually the property became so valuable that the Green Room