Ode to an alley: Columbian Lanes
There was no record kept of the first bowling alley I stepped foot in as a child. Parenting is hard, I am told. I cannot provide any firsthand history there, but from what I’ve observed, it checks out. So, though it is tempting to chalk up my parents’ inability to document such an important moment as Baby’s First Bowling Alley to bad parenting, they also did a lot of really great things. Forgive and forget, I suppose.
So, when I say Columbian Lanes, a 12-lane alley in the basement of the Columbian Lyceum on Staten Island, was the first bowling alley I stepped foot in, I do not have documentation on this. But I’m pretty confident about it. Hence, let’s commence our trip to this long-demolished part of my childhood and salute the first bowling alley I loved.
I bought the above photo on Ebay, from a guy who seems to have acquired the physical photo archive of the Staten Island Advance and thus is providing great assistance in decorating my apartment. The digitized versions of the photos will occasionally pop up on the Advance’s website in stories looking back at lost Staten Island (like this one on Columbian Lanes), but there’s something about having the physical photo that makes me happy. It’s a relic (a physical photo, developed in a newspaper darkroom) of a relic (a bowling alley that no longer exists), and I am nothing if not a lover of relics. I plan on being a relic someday. Probably very soon.
In any event, the photo features, as you can see, a lot of men. I don’t know any of them. Ben McNevich’s name is on the back of the photo, so that’s why I included it in the caption; internet research shows he was a legendary Staten Island bowler and member of the Staten Island Sports Hall of Fame, who apparently lived in my neighborhood and bowled nine 300 games. And now that I see his face, I probably did see him around, maybe at another local alley called Victory Lanes, where I spent many days during a long period of unemployment throwing a bowling ball as hard as I possibly could, once frightening a young child in the process.
But my original point when I started that last paragraph was that I do not think of men when I think of Columbian Lanes. My first experience there was a daytime league my mom was in, which for reasons I’m a little unclear on, meant that I was there a lot too. I would’ve remembered my mom and my friends’ moms pulling us all out of school to watch them bowl, so my best guess is it was a Wednesday league, because we had half-days on Wednesdays. I don’t know, and, again, my mom didn’t keep notes on this either, so this is all lost to history. Or perhaps someone in this women’s league has a full recounting of it somewhere and when this essay goes viral, we’ll get all the details. Stay tuned!
What I do remember was how cool the alley seemed to me, and how cool bowling seemed to me because of this. It was in a basement (I was not aware of it being called “the Dungeon” until I read the Advance story linked above, but it’s a fitting name), so you walked down a flight of stairs and entered a dark hallway with scores from various leagues displayed in metal cases on the left. And then there was a bar straight ahead, which was usually closed but still smelled like a bar because there was no way it was ever going to not smell like a bar. To this day, I associate the smell of a real bar, with stale cigarette smoke and ghosts of spilled beers, with something magical. And that probably started at Columbian Lanes.
My friends and I would spend most of our time in the room behind the wall to the left of the bar where all the lockers were. This area also seemed slightly magical and perhaps a little terrifying in a Shining kind of way, but we were left to our own devices while our moms bowled, and no one died and probably some homework got done, so it worked out in the end.
The actual bowling alley was in the room on the other side of the bar. It was not a very visually attractive alley: 12 lanes, wood paneling, exposed pipes in the ceiling, dull brown backdrops, and pillars dotting the approaches. If Fiona Apple had filmed a video in a bowling alley in the 1990s, it probably would’ve been at Columbian. But maybe because it was the one I first fell in love with, it is the one that I hold all others in comparison to. And there is no comparison, really. A lot of bowling alleys have similar feels, but I don’t think I ever saw one quite like Columbian Lanes. It was a bit of a dump, but it was a beautiful dump I wish I could still visit. And that’s why I was overjoyed when I was researching this article and found a YouTube video showing a match at Columbian Lanes in 1989, by which point my mom had stopped bowling. But trust me when I tell you, there weren’t a lot of renovations. Ever. This is Staten Island at any point in the late 1980s, and I love every second of it. That said, it’s over a half hour, so maybe you can just dip in for a bit and that’ll be enough for you.
(Side note: Any Staten Islander who grew up in the late 1980s would also delight in seeing that the match was taped by Joey G, who had a public access show called “Making Memories” that was largely passing around a microphone at a social gathering and hearing thick Staten Island accents congratulate the guest/s of honor for about an hour. It was amazing, and who do I have to talk to to get these tapes digitized and available 24/7 on a Joey G streaming service?)
The alley is just as I remember/loved it, with one notable exception. It looks like the snack machine has been moved out, and this was an essential part of my Columbian Lanes Experience. Because there was no snack bar at Columbian Lanes (and thus no overwhelming smell of grease as at also-demolished Sunset Lanes on Staten Island), it was snack machine or bust. The best days were when the snack machine was stocked with Bon Ton BBQ Potato Chips, which I Google roughly twice a year to see if someone has rebooted them (I’ll save you the time…they haven’t). They were my hands-down favorite chip of my youth, and their absence is a monumental loss that explains why the world is in such terrible shape. I salute you and your red and gold bag (a picture of which I can’t even find on the internet because the world stinks), Bon Ton BBQ Potato Chips, and I thank you for all you did for me. Like Columbian Lanes, there has never been another one quite like you.
As I sort through these memories in my head (and try not to think about those potato chips), it occurs to me that I’m not sure I actually bowled at Columbian very much. It didn’t seem like a place where you’d drop your kids off to bowl on a weekend afternoon, unlike the Showplace bowling alley that opened in 1987, which was part of a whole entertainment complex with a movie theater and a pizza place. The bar was the extent of the entertainment complex at Columbian. It wasn’t really kid-friendly (it was run by the Knights of Columbus, so I think it was more for them than the general public).
At some point, my friend Donnie and I joined a Saturday morning league at Columbian, but I don’t think we even finished the season because (a) competition has always made me uncomfortable and (b) if I’m gonna bowl on Saturday morning, that means I’m gonna miss wrestling on TV, and why would I do that? It remains the only league I ever joined, though, aside from high school intramurals, where my team once won third place. But then the other team noticed a scoring error after we had handed in the scores and I brought this up to the Christian Brother who ran the intramurals. I expected him to commend me on my honesty, but instead he basically told me, “Too bad for them.” But I declined the trophy. I was not celebrated at a special assembly called in my honor to recognize my courageous stance, and I still think this was a bad decision on the part of the school. If they still want to do it, I can make myself available.
Anyway, enough about my heroism.
Columbian Lanes closed in 1999, and the Columbian Lyceum (which also hosted my sister’s Sweet 16) was demolished in 2000. I think there are now only two bowling alleys left on the island, down from seven when I was a kid. I follow a Facebook group called “Where have all the bowling alleys gone?” that is both depressing (because they’re gone) and uplifting (to see people posting and talking about lanes long gone). I have bowled hundreds of games at dozens of alleys since I first opened the door of Columbian Lanes and that scent of cigarette smoke and spilled beer hit my nose. Some places have been great, some have been less than great, but none have hit me like Columbian Lanes. Well, maybe the Holler House in Milwaukee.
But the Holler House is kind of a basement too, so I guess it’s the basement aspect that made Columbian seem kind of special and otherworldly. It was not terribly bright inside and there were no windows anywhere, so it had this feel of stepping into some other weird dimension for a few hours. It was like being cut off from everything around you, which is appealing as a kid and, quite honestly, sounds pretty good right now too.
I’m gonna go ahead and officially declare Columbian Lanes was my first bowling alley, and, as such, even though there are townhouses where it once stood, it still stands as a (dimly lit) shining beacon of my youth. So I just wanted to salute it today.
But also, I’m getting the word out on those BBQ chips. Someone get those back out there. Please and thank you.