The White House bowling story includes string pins, a $253,000 lighting contract and decades of bowling-industry money. This documentary follows who paid, what the records show and why the Truman and Residence alleys keep getting confused.
Truman’s friends from Missouri paid for the first two lanes in 1947. Those lanes later moved to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Nixon’s separate, single-lane Residence alley opened in 1973: three donors covered $40,698.95 in site work, while AMF supplied the bowling equipment. The White House memo records annual rent to AMF but leaves the amount struck out. AMF was one of the sport’s two major equipment companies, alongside Brunswick. Its installation placed its equipment inside the President’s residence.
In 2014, GSA called the Truman lanes irreparable and proposed a rebuild. The solicitation was canceled the same night the story broke. Casey Neistat and PBA stars later bowled there. A 2021 federal order bought $49,961.60 of bowling equipment from QubicaAMF, but does not identify which alley received it or establish that it purchased string pinsetters. December 2023 footage separately shows string pins in the Truman alley. The BPAA-funded renovation announced by Melania Trump in 2019 concerned Nixon’s Residence lane.