By Christina Singleton, with thanks to Henrietta Music for her memories and contribution
A popular question among Subud Sisters and Brothers is “how did you find Subud?” And the answer is very often “Subud found me”. Have you ever wondered how the Wilshire building found Subud? You guessed it: Subud found the building! The story goes like this…
1966: Downtown Los Angeles was very different from the one we know now. The Hope Street Hall latihan site was in a giant building and was rented from a men’s social club. In those days, Subud LA had a huge group with about 300 people every Monday and Thursday. Two latihans were held back-to-back to accommodate so many people.
1968: It was around this time that Bapak designed the regions within the US. One early house was in Carmel Valley, another in Elk and Marin, etc. Bapak returned to LA and advised that centers that have the will and momentum to buy a house do fundraising across the region.
1978: Bapak returned for his LA visit, where his party had the entire top floor at The Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica. By this time, Hope Street was no longer being rented and the location of Latihan had moved from Hope Street to a place in the Valley. Other temporary halls were being used in Silverlake and on the Westside.
While Bapak was in LA, it became known that Hope Street Hall was for sale with a handsome price tag of $168K. Bapak visited the building with its two huge Latihan halls plus space to run a little business. Bapak was the first contributor and dropped five $100 bills into the hat, which was then passed around to start raising the funds to buy Hope Street Hall.
At the time, Henrietta Music was an active helper. After encouragement from her friends, testing, and a tenacious focus on raising enough money to buy Hope Street Hall for Subud LA, she became Chair of LA.
All efforts were focused on fundraising and by the end of 1978, Hope Street Hall was the new home of Subud LA. It was home for LA for the next 12 years.
1990: Hope Street Hall was in a deteriorating part of downtown. Many members were fearful about getting to and from the hall. There were a number of incidences of aggression, bag snatching, and car vandalism. It was time to move on.
Like magic, a local church approached Subud LA wanting to buy the property, which wasn’t even on the market AND (unknown to us), the market was at its peak so the timing couldn’t have been better. The church offered Subud LA two years rent-free to practice the Latihan weekly while seeking another Subud hall. Hope Street Hall was sold to them for $1.2 million.
Life was comfortable during this time. At first, no effort was put into house hunting and the rent-free period was greatly appreciated and utilized.
1991: Lorenzo Music became Chair of LA and set his efforts on finding a new LA Subud House. Lorenzo and Henrietta lived near Wilshire Blvd. Every day, Henrietta would walk the same route. One morning Lorenzo decided to join her but only if they could just “follow their feet”. They found themselves on Wilshire Blvd, near La Brea Park and the LA County Art M
Lorenzo ignored Henrietta’s fear that the building was too expensive and called the realtor. It was a dance studio that had been on the market for a year because another housing market crash occurred in 1991.
Result: the building was purchased for under $1 million – in cash!
1992: The Wilshire Subud hall had its opening Latihan.
2019: Now, the building is in another phase of redevelopment and will host an art gallery on the remodeled first floor.
Over the course of 30 years, Subud LA rode the housing market like a wave that never crashed onto the shore. Who knows what may come next!
And now– read a wonderful story by Latifah Taormina about the early days of both Subud LA and Subud Marin here.