Lung Kong Tin Yee Association Shrine, Seattle西雅图龙冈亲义公所神坛

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

United States · Washington State · Seattle · Within the Kong Yick Building on King Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

First built

Its existence is attested by a photograph from 1911; the Kong Yick Building was completed in 1910.

Overview

The Lung Kong Tin Yee Association Shrine in Seattle is located within the Kong Yick Building on King Street, completed in 1910; a photograph from 1911 records its shrine room behind the balcony. The association is a joint-lineage organization of the Lau, Kwan, Cheung and Chew (Liu, Guan, Zhang, Zhao) surnames, and its shrine is dedicated jointly to the four sworn brothers of the Peach Garden. CINARC judges this to be a private shrine of the association rather than a public temple open to outsiders, an example of the broader early-twentieth-century trend in North American Chinese religious space of shifting ‘from public temples to private association shrines.’ Today the left half of the Kong Yick Building houses the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, while the right half still belongs to the Lung Kong Tin Yee Association; the original balcony has been demolished, and the current state of the shrine is not publicly documented.

Highlights

• Located within the Kong Yick Building, completed in 1910
• A shrine to the four sworn brothers of the Peach Garden, shared by a four-surname lineage association
• Reflects the trend of public temples shifting into private association shrines
• The other half of the building now houses the Wing Luke Museum