Holiday Bowl, Bowling alley in Crenshaw District, Los Angeles, US.
Holiday Bowl was a bowling center on Crenshaw Boulevard in the Crenshaw District of Los Angeles, built in the Googie style with large windows and sculpted rooflines. Beyond the bowling lanes, the building held a pool hall, a bar, and a coffee shop that stayed open around the clock.
Five Japanese American entrepreneurs opened the center in 1958, shortly after many in their community had returned from World War II internment camps. The building was torn down in 2003 to make way for a shopping mall.
The bowling center brought together African American, Japanese American, and Latino residents who lived nearby and shared the same lanes, bar, and coffee shop counter. The food menu alone told the story of the neighborhood: grits, udon noodles, hamburgers, and spicy sausages all served under the same roof.
Holiday Bowl no longer stands, having been torn down in 2003. Visitors interested in the site can walk along Crenshaw Boulevard and see the shopping mall that replaced it, though nothing of the original structure remains.
The coffee shop inside Holiday Bowl was named a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 2000, but the entire building was demolished just three years later. The designation protected the memory of the place on paper while the structure itself disappeared from the street.
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