Red, White & Bloom

Happy 4th of July!

The photo above is of my Step-Dad, Hal Snyder with my Mom, Roz Bloom Snyder. I thought they looked extremely patriotic in their red, white and blue.....perfect for Independence Day! This photo was taken last Sunday at Pepy's Coffee Shop at the Mar Vista Bowling Alley on Venice Blvd. in Los Angeles. We had a delicious breakfast...you can read about it here.

The Mar Vista Bowling Alley represents that era of Los Angeles architecture known as "Googie." Googie architecture, named after Googie's Coffee Shop (demolished) on Sunset and Crescent Hts. in L.A., came to represent that style of soaring roof lines, large windows and space-age architecture, geared to the automobile. When you saw the bustling, inviting coffee shop through the windows from your car, you wanted to go in to be part of that world.

The Mar Vista Bowling Alley has a Tiki-Googie look to it. I'm not sure when it was built, but probably in the late 1950's early 1960's. Much of that stretch of Venice Blvd. has this type of architecture. The front of the bowling alley facade has lava rock. There is a stylized Mayan-looking concrete section too.

I'll bet that the slanted angles of these walls once led to pointed roof-lines, simulating the A-Frame/tiki hut look so popular in California architecture after Hawaii became a State in 1959.

I vaguely remember smaller wooden tiki figures in the planters, in front of the windows. There is one remaining tiki pole which holds up the entrance awning. The owners recently cleared the bushes in front of this large tiki. Hopefully, this means that the Mar Vista Bowling Alley is finally embracing it's tiki-roots and will restore the look.