Eastern Glory Temple (Donghua Miao), San Francisco旧金山东华庙

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

United States · California · San Francisco · Its original site was an entire third-floor floor at around 1–7 St. Louis Alley (present-day St. Louis Place) in Chinatown, accessible from both Dupont Street (present-day Grant Avenue) and Jackson Street; it moved to the top floor of 35 Waverly Place around 1885; both sites were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire, and neither building survives.

Coordinates

37.7957, -122.4071 Map ↗

First built

1871 · Founded privately by Li Po Tai, a renowned Chinatown physician; the temple moved to the top floor of 35 Waverly Place around 1885; Li died in 1893, and in 1896 the Yee Fung Toy Association purchased the entire building; it was not rebuilt after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.

Overview

Donghua Miao (the Eastern Glory Temple) is the only nineteenth-century urban great temple in North America documented to have enshrined Xuantian Shangdi (Beidi, the Northern Emperor) as the central deity of its main hall. Its founder, Li Po Tai (also rendered Li Putai), was the wealthiest and most renowned physician of Chinatown, a native of Guangdong; in 1870 he was severely injured and disfigured in a gas explosion, and the following year he financed the building of the temple on an entire third-floor floor of a building on St. Louis Alley, six to eight rooms in all: the first room for reception, the next for the sale of incense, candles and paper offerings, and the remaining rooms dedicated to various deities. At the center of the main hall was Xuantian Shangdi, with Guandi on the left and Hongsheng on the right — six images in the main hall altogether; the side room on the left enshrined Tianhou and Jinhua Niangniang, and the side room on the right enshrined Guanyin. The intended statues were lost when an intermediary absconded with three thousand dollars, so local San Francisco Chinese craftsmen instead modeled and painted the images from local clay. In the 1870s Donghua Miao was known as Chinatown's 'Great Temple'; by 1880, two of the three major festivals of the whole of Chinatown were held there — the birthday of Beidi on the third day of the third lunar month, and the birthday of the God of Wealth on the sixteenth day of the seventh month. Stereoscopic photographs taken by Eadweard Muybridge between 1870 and 1875 preserve images of the main altar, among the earliest interior photographs of a Chinese temple in North America; an oil painting by the German-born painter Karl Wilhelm Hahn clearly depicts the three characters 'Dong Hua Miao' on the temple's lintel. Around 1885 the temple moved to the top floor of 35 Waverly Place; it was still recorded in Masters' 1892 Pagan Temples of San Francisco, and was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire. An unresolved question remains: in the same text Masters separately records a 'Northern Pole Xuantian Shangdi Temple' near Waverly Place and Commercial Street, listing it as an entry distinct from Donghua Miao; on this basis CINARC holds that San Francisco had a second temple named directly for Beidi, while Luo Masijiweiqi, drawing on an 1882 guidebook, concludes the two were in fact the same site. This entry provisionally follows the latter view and does not create a separate entry.

Highlights

• The only nineteenth-century urban great temple in North America confirmed to enshrine Xuantian Shangdi as the central deity of its main hall
• Founded privately in 1871 by Li Po Tai, a renowned Chinatown physician, occupying six to eight rooms across an entire building floor
• Xuantian Shangdi at the center of the main hall, with Guandi on the left and Hongsheng on the right
• Around 1880 two of Chinatown's three major festivals — the birthday of Beidi on 3/3 and the birthday of the God of Wealth on 7/16 — were held there
• Muybridge's stereoscopic photographs and Hahn's oil painting preserve its appearance; destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire