WHITESTONE LANES

FORGIVE the relatively poor angle on this shot of Whitestone Lanes, at Whitestone Expressway and Linden Place, technically in Flushing. (It actually looks better by night than by day.) I got the shot in a cab waiting at a stoplight. The bowling facility is forced to serve all of northern Queens since it’s now the only game in town, with NYC’s lanes having been whittled down over the years from hundreds to handfuls. Whitestone Lanes’ demise has been mentioned throughout 2024, as it is has supposedly been sold to a developer set to raze it for no doubt nondescript apartment houses. Yet, as the saying goes, it persisted. The 48-lane facility opened in the 1960s (I cannot pinpoint the year) and it has what must be its original sign, which gets the job done. It was formerly open around the clock: when I lived in Flushing, if I so chose, I could have strolled in at 2 AM and bowled several games. Post pandemic, it closes at 1 AM.

I have never bowled at Whitestone Lanes, having given up the game in the Easy 80s. You can only bang your head against the wall for so long. I began bowling in 1967 at age ten at Leemark Lanes on 88th Street in Bay Ridge, when I joined a Friday afternoon school league. I was horrible. My first game, I bowled a 6. My second, a 7. My parents and I would go on Sunday afternoons for years to help sharpen my technique, but it didn’t work. I could never master the hook you need to consistently score, and I never had real coaching. So, I heaved it down the middle and hoped for the best. Since my spare shooting wasn’t great either I could never get my average over 150 in my high school league and my one year with the St. Francis College team. I did belong to a second league in my college years, but it required me to take 3 buses or two buses and a train from Bay Ridge to Sheepshead Bay and I was staggering home on Thursday night at 1 or 2 am and often had to get to a 9 am class. Nevertheless, I’m a two time lettered athlete, bowling teams in high school and college.

I remember my bowling days fondly though; I lived for those Friday afternoons and the Sunday outings with the old man. We religiously watched the weekly pro bowling tournament finals Saturday afternoons with Chris Schenkel and Billy Welu and later, Nelson Burton Junior (unless Burton was in the finals himself; that’s like Keith Hernandez calling Mets games unless they needed him for first base). I bowled at Leemark, Bay Ridge Lanes on 8th Avenue, the Port Authority and even in Elmsford, NY. But Jason Belmonte or Pete Weber Jr., I wasn’t. I wish I had been, though.

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3/4/25