Come here often? Prospective Elks members sit at a bar at the fraternal organization's lodge. (AP Photo/Daniel Lovering)
Incoming Elks members stand near an altar. (AP Photo/Daniel Lovering)
New Elks members raise their right hands and take an oath. (AP Photo/Daniel Lovering)
New members of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. (AP Photo/Daniel Lovering)
Longtime member Michael Smalley says hes all for the influx of younger people.
Maritza Mosquera says shes having to contain her excitement over joining.
Elina Malkin says shes joining to feel a part of the community - and to have a place to drink.
Braddock Mayor John Fetterman says the membership has embraced the youth movement.
Fetterman admits theres a bit of irony in joining - but its all good.

As night falls in this blighted neighborhood near Pittsburgh, young artists and professionals gather at a basement bar, ordering beers for less than $2 and rubbing elbows with silver-haired gentlemen twice their age.

It's not your typical night spot. It's the local haunt of a 139-year-old fraternal organization, the Elks.

Formally speaking, it's Lodge No. 883 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks in Braddock, a once-thriving industrial area now lined with pawn shops and abandoned buildings. The lodge, like Braddock, is trying to make a comeback.

It's not your typical night at Lodge No. 883, either. Several dozen men and women, mostly in their 20s and 30s, are here to be sworn in as new members in a ceremony performed by Elks leaders who read from ritual books and wear outsize pendants around their necks.

It's billed as the largest such ceremony in the history of the lodge, established in 1903 and housed in a stout brick building with neoclassical columns and a nondescript rear entrance that leads, fittingly, to the bar -- a sort of modern-day speakeasy with a jukebox that pumps out everything from Santana to REO Speedwagon to Nirvana.

You might think the clock stopped long ago at Lodge No. 883, where an aging World War II veteran cooks breakfast for three bucks a head several days a week.

"To me, it's the kind of experience you just can't get going to Denny's," says John Fetterman, Braddock's 37-year-old mayor, an Elk of several years who has the area's ZIP code tattooed prominently on his left forearm.

And that's part of its charm, according to several would-be members, who speak excitedly about joining a club they once associated with their grandparents and a mode of socializing that was fashionable when the Flintstones aired in prime time.

Some chuckle and say they don't know what to expect, that they came at the urging of a friend or a widely distributed e-mail invitation that read: "BECOME AN ELK TOMORROW!!! ... Cheap drinks. Good times. Great antlers!"

At the same time, they dismiss the idea that they're joining out of a sense of irony. They really want to become Elks. Really.

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HATS AND SECRET HANDSHAKES

There are three simple requirements that applicants must fulfill to join the Elks: they must be U.S. citizens, they must be at least 21 years old and they must believe in an unspecified god.

Dues at the Braddock lodge are just $45 a year, and the $25 initiation fee has been waived on this special night in March, when the unusually large group of prospective members -- some with hair in dreadlocks, some clutching bottles of beer -- is led from the bar to an upstairs wood-paneled room for the swearing-in ceremony, parts of which the Elks prefer to keep secret.

Some of the new recruits find that popular notions of Elkdom don't hold true (beginning with the admission of women, a change that was made in 1995).

"There is no hat and there is no handshake -- I'm a little sad," says Maritza Mosquera, 43, an artist from Pittsburgh's Highland Park neighborhood. "But there is more. I am in a room full of people that probably are as diverse as it comes, exciting people who are willing to be this great, extraordinary, traditional emblem of American history. It's pretty cool."

The Elks follow four basic tenets -- charity, justice, brotherly love and fidelity. They have an endowment of more than $400 million and operate a foundation that gives away millions in scholarship money each year to students across the country. Outreach projects focus on helping veterans and their families, among other things.

"Nothing we do will interfere with any of your personal life -- religion, politics, family, nothing like that," says Michael Smalley, 64, a retired sales rep for a greeting card company who's been an Elk for 22 years. He's held the lodge's highest title -- Exalted Ruler -- four times since he joined back in the '80s, when Pittsburgh's steel mills were still open and the lodge was bustling.

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A DYING BREED?

Death and attrition have thinned the Elk herd significantly in recent years. But the national organization is still a sizable contingent, with about 1 million members.

"We've had a lot of the old-time members pass away," Smalley says of the Braddock lodge. "When I joined, we had, I think, almost 500 members. And as you see, we're down to 190."

But the stewards of the organization say that's changing. They've launched an effort to attract new members by word-of-mouth and by urging lodges to publicize their activities. There are some 2,300 lodges across the country and in Guam, the Philippines, Panama and Puerto Rico.

"We've had a decline, but we believe that has stopped now, and we're going to start moving back in the other direction," says Arthur "Jack" Frost, 62, the national Elks president, who is also known as the Grand Exalted Ruler.

The group's ethic seems to be resonating with retiring baby boomers and younger people who want to serve their communities and belong to the club, he says. Not to mention the access to Elks facilities, which often include a bar and maybe a restaurant or swimming pool.

But Frost says the Elks are trying to dispel the notion that their lodges are merely places "where old men go to smoke, play cards and drink." Some lodges are decked out with gyms and golf courses, and families are always welcome, he says.

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JOLLY CORKS

There may be a resurgence of Elks, but the organization is hardly new. Its lineage stretches back to the 1860s, when a handful of actors in New York City banded together and dubbed themselves the Jolly Corks.

"They formed this organization to meet privately and relax after their performances," Frost explains. "When it came time to choose a (new) name, the name elephants came up and elks won by one vote."

The first Elks lodge was established in New York, and others later sprang up across the country.

Blacks and women were barred from joining the Elks in the early days. That prompted a black train porter, who had found an Elks ritual book, to start a separate group called the Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, which continues today.

These days, the Elks' doors are open -- and open wide.

"We're very proud of the fact that you can come to our facilities and have a drink and socialize and feel completely safe," says Frost.

At the Braddock lodge, the newly initiated Elks seemed more than comfortable and safe as they sipped drinks and ate potluck sausages at the bar after their swearing-in ceremony. They seemed downright fraternal.

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asap contributor Daniel Lovering is an AP reporter in Pittsburgh.

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