27.3.07

F I R S TP R E V511NEXTLAST

Bella and Buddha, Portsmouth Square
A boring photo (sorry) but an interesting history. In 1849 this site off Portsmouth Square was the location of the famous Bella Union gambling house and saloon. The Bella Union was destroyed by fire in 1850 and 1851, but rebuilt again both times. It was famous for featuring female croupiers in a town that hardly had any women. The Bella Union's fame spawned many other similarly-named saloons throughout the West. After it was destroyed in the Great Earthquake of 1906 it reopened in a nearby location where it continued its infamous ways during San Francisco's Barbary Coast days.

As if to purify the location, the largest Buddhist temple in the United States, Buddha's Universal Temple sits on the site of the old Bella Union. Built entirely by hand from exotic hardwoods and decorated with colorful murals and tile mosaics the five-story temple was dedicated in 1963. On the roof of the temple is a lotus pool and a Bodhi tree, grown from an offshoot of the same tree underneath which Buddha arrived at enlightenment 2,500 years ago. The temple is open, free of charge, to visitors on the second and fourth Sunday of most months.
[ MAP F-15 ]


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