The Bush Street Temple at 1881 Bush Street in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, is a State Landmark with historical significance to both the

Orthodox Jewish Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses on M ...

community and to

Buddhism in the United States The term American Buddhism can be used to describe all Buddhist groups within the United States, including Asian Americans, Asian-American Buddhists born into the faith, who comprise the largest percentage of Buddhists in the country. American Budd ...

Building

The building was built in 1895 in a

Moorish Revival Moorish Revival or Neo-Moorish is one of the exotic revival architectural styles that were adopted by architects of Europe and the Americas in the wake of Romanticist Orientalism. It reached the height of its popularity after the mid-19th centur ...

- Venetian style designed by Moses J. Lyon. The arches across the front are copied from the

Doge's Palace The Doge's Palace ( it, Palazzo Ducale; vec, Pałaso Dogal) is a palace built in Venetian Gothic style, and one of the main landmarks of the city of Venice in northern Italy. The palace was the residence of the Doge of Venice, the supreme auth ...

. It was extensively renovated in 2003, at which time it was joined to a new adjacent structure. The building is constructed almost entirely of redwood. Originally, much of the interior was painted in ''

trompe-l'œil ''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...

'' to resemble marble. In its original configuration it featured a pair of elaborate towers, since lost.

History

Congregation Ohabai Shalome

In 1864, a group of disaffected members of

’s Congregation Emanu-El broke away and established Congregation Ohabai Shalome (Heb.: Lovers of Peace,) when they objected to the modification of the ritual in the older synagogue. It was popularly known as the Bush Street Synagogue. In the face of declining membership, the congregation sold the building in November 1934 to the Soto Zen Mission of the Sokoji Buddhist Church.

San Francisco Go Club

The San Francisco Go Club had become the first overseas branch of Japan's

Nihon Ki-in The Nihon Ki-in (), also known as the Japan Go Association, is the main organizational body for Go in Japan, overseeing Japan's professional system and issuing diplomas for amateur dan rankings. It is based in Tokyo. The other major Go associat ...

in 1936 and in 1937 moved into the left wing of the building. The club remained, even after the building was otherwise abandoned, until forced out by redevelopment about 1994.

Sokoji Soto Zen Mission

During World War II, the owners and Japanese-American congregants of the Soto Zen Mission of the Sokoji Buddhist Church were interned in concentration camps, as part of the wartime s

Japanese American internment Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

. During this time, while its Japanese-American owners continued to make mortgage payments on the building, 1881 Bush Street became the home of the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church, a church whose congregants were primarily African-Americans from the American South. After the war, the Zen Mission took back ownership of the building. In 1959 Shunryu Suzuki Roshi arrived at Sokoji to minister to the congregation. He initiated the regular practice of

zazen ''Zazen'' (literally " seated meditation"; ja, 座禅; , pronounced ) is a meditative discipline that is typically the primary practice of the Zen Buddhist tradition. However, the term is a general one not unique to Zen, and thus technicall ...

, which was unusual at the time and soon began to attract western students. The

San Francisco Zen Center San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC), is a network of affiliated Sōtō Zen practice and retreat centers in the San Francisco Bay area, comprising City Center or Beginner's Mind Temple, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, and Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. Th ...

was incorporated separately, comprising the western disciples of Suzuki Roshi, who continued to share the space throughout the 1960s with the Sokoji congregation. During this time the building was one of the central locations of the transmission of

Zen Buddhism Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

to the United States. In 1969 the Zen Center, in need of larger facilities, moved to Page Street. The Sokoji community also moved three years later in 1972, and the building thereafter stood empty and fell into disrepair, coming under the ownership of the

San Francisco Redevelopment Agency The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (SFRA) was an urban renewal agency active from 1948 until 2012, with purpose to improve the urban landscape through "redesign, redevelopment, and rehabilitation" of specific areas of the city. SFRA demolis ...

Abandonment and Redevelopment

In the late 1980s, there were unsuccessful attempts to turn the building into a Jewish Cultural Center. Finally, in 1996, the ownership of the building was transferred to the Japanese American Religious Federation and it ultimately was given to Kokoro Assisted Living, a home for senior citizens, most of whom are from the Japanese-American community. Kokoro opened in 2003.O'Brien, Colleen. "Senior housing project revitalizes long-vacant corner of Japantown" ''San Francisco Business Times'' March 26, 2004
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References

External links

News feature on renovationDescription with picture of the facade
{{coord, 37, 47, 15, N, 122, 25, 41, W, region:US, display=title Synagogues in San Francisco San Francisco Zen Center Buddhism in San Francisco San Francisco Designated Landmarks Religious organizations established in 1864 1864 establishments in California Moorish Revival synagogues Moorish Revival architecture in California