The Mayflower Ballroom on Hindry Ave. in Inglewood. Undated photo. (Credit: Rusty Frank website)
Ballrooms featuring live bands boomed during the 1930s and 1940s, their dancefloors filled with people swaying to the popular music of the day.
The “dance music” in question varied in type, but bore little resemblance to the thumping electronic rhythms heard today. Big band music was the largest draw. The “barn dance” phenomenon drew thousands of western swing and country fans as well, and jazz and rhythm and blues also proved popular in thriving venues such as those along Central Avenue in South Los Angeles.
The Mayflower Ballroom at 234 S. Hindry Street in Inglewood opted mostly for the big band option. The 9,000-square-foot venue had been built in 1939, tucked away on a side street near Manchester Boulevard, within the small section of the city that extends west of the 405 Freeway.
A crowd gathers near the Mayflower Ballroom, top, after a police responded to a robbery attempt at a nearby Manchester Blvd. bar in 1957. (Credit: UCLA Digital Photo Archive)
The building served as a USO canteen in its earliest years, then as an ice skating rink and a Swedish lodge before finally switching to ballroom dancing in 1954.
In addition to its bread-and-butter ballroom dancing nights, the Mayflower also was rented out by all types of civic organizations and clubs for meetings, dances, socials, installation dinners and more. Weddings, quinceaneras, bar mitzvahs and other religious services also were held there, as were community forums and political debates.
The Inglewood Chamber of Commerce even sponsored a couple of higher-profile gatherings there. Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle of “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo” fame spoke at the Chamber’s installation of officers in January 1961.
The Chamber landed former Vice President Richard Nixon for its January 1962 installation dinner. More than 600 tickets were sold for the Nixon event, held during his unsuccessful campaign for California governor.
Undated photo shows the interior of the Mayflower Ballroom. (Credit: Rusty Frank website)
Between the dances and social events, business was good throughout the 1960s, but dipped during the 1970s.
Mark L. Sinaguglia worked at the Mayflower for several years before taking over as its manager in 1980. He later would become the ballroom’s co-owner.
In the early 1990s, Sinaguglia worked to improve Inglewood’s negative image following the 1992 riots as president of the Inglewood Chamber of Commerce.
In January 1995, Sinaguglia also became the manager of local car wash owner Sam Kash’s new LAX Firing Range, located adjacent to the Mayflower on Manchester.
Brothers Don and Slim Tanner performed together at the Mayflower Ballroom for 23 years. The Tanner Brothers Orchestra, pictured in March 2006 (left to right): Byron Long, Slim Tanner, Don Tanner, Mike McGuffey, John Bambridge, Johnny Rotella, and Bob Efford. (Photo courtesy Slim Tanner via 47 Blog, AFM Local 47 website)
The Mayflower continued to operate through good and lean years, drawing some younger customers by capitalizing on trends such as the swing music revival in the late 1990s led by groups such as The Brian Setzer Orchestra, and by offering salsa nights and other special events.
By the turn of the millennium, it had become one of the last surviving venues in the Los Angeles area from the golden era of ballrooms to still offer old-school dancing. Groups as the Bill Elliott Swing Orchestra and the Tanner Brothers Orchestra provided the music, and the dancers provided the nostalgia.
The Mayflower outlasted such venerable sites as the Stardust Ballroom in Hollywood (celebrated in the 1975 TV movie “Queen of the Stardust Ballroom”), the Aragon in Ocean Park and Myron’s Ballroom near downtown L.A.
But its devoted customers were growing older and fewer in number, and the club finally was shuttered for good in December 2008. It would be rented out sporadically over the next couple of years, often for religious services.
In October 2012, the ballroom’s corporate owner, Mayflower Holdings, sold it to the owner of the LAX Rifle Range, for $1.6 million, according to property tax records.
In 2013, the venerable structure was torn down. The new owners built a shooting range on the site, which became part of the LAX Firing Range complex.
The Mayflower Ballroom was torn down to make way for a shooting range at the LAX Rifle Range complex. (June 2018 photo by Sam Gnerre)
Sources:
The Argonaut files.
Daily Breeze files.
“Happy 100th Birthday, Slim!”, 47 Blog, AFM Local 47.
Los Angeles Times files.
Rusty Frank website.
