A
bowling alley founded in 1958 by five Japanese Americans, the Holiday
Bowl was part of the process of rebuilding the Nikkei community
after Internment; the owners sold shares throughout the community
in order to finance its construction. Given the Bowl’s location
on Crenshaw, it was important in the desegregation of Los Angeles,
as it served an Anglo American, African American, and Japanese American
clientele. The coffee shop, for example, featured grits, udon, chow
mein, and hamburgers. Due to poor management, however, the Bowl
closed in 2000 and was targeted for demolition. Bowl supporters
mobilized, persuading the City of Los Angeles’s Cultural Heritage
Commission to designate the structure an historical-cultural monument.
Despite publlic outcry, it was torn down in October of 2003. For
more information, please visit the Holiday
Bowl History Project. The Bowl was valued for its 1950s style,
“Googie” architecture, but also for its importance in
creating an integrated Los Angeles. |
