Landmark fig tree is a focal point for L.A.'s Little Tokyo

The sprawling, century-old Aoyama tree in Little Tokyo was formally designated last week as Los Angeles' historic-cultural monument No. 920.

But for Jack Kunitomi, the Moreton Bay fig will always be known simply as the flirting tree.

Kunitomi, 92, remembers the tree as the site where he would try to line up dates with girls attending Sunday morning services at the Koyasan Buddhist Temple in the 1920s.

"I was not very successful," said the Little Tokyo native, who climbed the 60-foot tree when it was just a single trunk and barely taller than the temple.

The fig tree never helped Kunitomi woo any ladies, but it has represented the city's Japanese American community for nearly 100 years.

"This tree has endured all odds," Ken Bernstein, manager at the Office of Historic Resources, said at Thursday's designation ceremony.

The tree has stood as the Koyasan temple changed locations, office buildings rose and fell, two museums -- the Japanese American National Museum and the Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art -- moved in, and a parking lot was paved over its roots.

Amid such changes in Little Tokyo, the Aoyama tree has remained the community's one constant. Its designation symbolizes the founding of the Koyasan.

The Rev. Shutai Aoyama, a Japanese immigrant who labored on farms, on railroads and in shipyards, started the temple in 1912 at a small Commercial Street storefront.

He moved the temple in 1920 to a former Japanese restaurant across the street on Central Avenue, where the fig tree grew next to the steps of the wood-frame building.

Koyasan, which moved to its current 1st Street location in 1940, doubled as a religious center and community hub for Japanese Americans, and helped forge an American-style Buddhism.

Unlike its counterparts in Japan, which do not hold regular services, Koyasan and other temples in Little Tokyo started Sunday services, mirroring the more pervasive Christian churches.

Many temples offered classes on citizenship and integrating into American culture, said Bill Watanabe, executive director of the Little Tokyo Service Center.

At its peak in the late 1930s, Koyasan's congregation included 500 to 600 families, said Frances Nakamura, the temple's board president.

Today, about 250 families attend Koyasan, she said.

Declining membership has changed the kind of activities and services the temple offers.