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| Southport Lanes and Billiards |
Southport Lanes and Billiards was built in the 1920s by The Schlitz Brewing Company. History tells us that, like a lot of places in its day, it was once a front for a speakeasy with a brothel located on the second floor. But what makes it really unique is that this four-lane house is one of just a handful of alleys in this country that are currently using manual pinsetting machines operated by "pin boys" in the area behind the pins.
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| Southport and Its Four Lanes |
In fact almost everything about the operation includes original equipment including the above-surface ball returns. The main exception to that is the lanes themselves: the expense of maintaining the original wood lanes was too much to bear for the owners so they were replaced with synthetic lanes and approaches a few years ago.
It was a slow day when we were there, so I was lucky enough to convince the general manager to give me a quick tour of what life is like behind the lanes, something he said he doesn't do too often.
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| Mind the Rules and Don't Bowl If You See Legs! |
The first thing I noticed is that being skinny (which I'm not) would be an advantage in getting back there as I contorted my body up and around the ball return between lane one and the wall. There's also not much room when you do get back there and I'd find it amazing if a year goes by without somebody getting hit by a ball or a flying pin.
We didn't actually bowl at Southport (and in case you're wondering there are no sanctioned leagues here). Just being there was special enough. Here's a good news story I found that was done by a Chicago TV station a couple of years ago, followed by some photos I took.
http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/17819843/southport-lanes-and-billiards-preserves-chicago-history
6 comments:
Joe - this place looks so cool! Thank you for taking the time to write this and share it. I'd like to link to this blog post from the Vanishing Alleys' FB page, if that's OK.
Kevin
Absolutely. Thanks and you're welcome to link the page, use any photos, whatever you'd like. I'm looking forward to your book!
That is pretty cool. Both of my sisters worked setting pins in an alley in my home town. By the time I started bowling in the early 60s, they had installed automatic pinsetters so I never had direct experience with the old game. I remember them complaining how there were a couple of guys who threw the ball so hard that pins would fly all over, making it pretty dangerous.
It was a great experience just to stand back there, cvow. It's a long gone era and the closest we can come is to step into the space for a brief period of time and think about what it might have been like to have been there.
My cousin Dave told me he worked as a pinsetter in the last manual lane in the world. I guess he was exaggerating! His is in Antarctica. Thanks for squeezing back there and taking pictures for us, BowlingJoe.
I'm glad there's some form of recreation in Antarctica, Pilla!
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