216 N. Bonnie Brae

In Sunday's LAT Magazine, Mark Kendall tells the story of one of the city's lesser-known historic locales. The house (in what's now called Historic Filipinotown) is where the Pentecostal movement began a hundred years ago after Christian believers began speaking in tongues during Bible studies convened by a Catholic-raised African American preacher named William Seymour.

Built in 1896 at 216 N. Bonnie Brae St., it is revered for its role a century ago at the ignition of the fiery, ecstatic form of Christianity known as Pentecostalism, a religious movement that may surpass the movie business as Los Angeles' most influential export.

It was at the Bonnie Brae house that believers set off a movement of exuberant worship that has grown from a scoffed-at sect to the world's fastest-growing branch of Christianity, with more than 500 million participants around the globe. And as Pentecostalism explodes in Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia, the fire hasn't gone out on Bonnie Brae Street.

The home is owned by the Church of God in Christ and visited regularly by pilgrims. (So the 500 million figure sounds high, since it would mean that 1 in 13 human beings participate in Pentecostal churches or worship. For what it's worth, the current Wikipedia entry says the number is between 115 and 400 million worldwide. I'd like to see some attribution on the Times figure.)