The world's largest bowling alley—112 lanes covering a space as long as two football fields—was completed last week in Edison, N.J., by two brothers, Thomas Jr. and James Swales. Said Tom Swales: "You practically need binoculars to see from one side to the other." What the bowlers also saw was the latest sample of how the bowling boom has changed the once smoky, dusty, somewhat disreputable hangout for men into a family and community recreation center. Edison Lanes not only offers special promotions for women bowlers and cut rates for children, it also opens its meeting rooms free for Boy Scouts and teenagers, plans to add a nursery.
Hardly a week goes by without the addition of similar establishments built to boost the ever-affluent style in which Americans bowl, provide a broad range of services to make more friends—and win new bowlers—in the community. Examples:
¶ Omaha's Ranch Bowl lends its meeting room to a Roman Catholic parish for Sunday Mass, provides pancakes for parishioners afterward. On Monday nights, the Ranch Bowl turns the room over to the 60-piece Omaha Symphony Orchestra for rehearsals.
¶ Orchard Twin Bowl of Skokie, Ill. employs a full-time sociologist to plan community activities around the bowling alley, helps to produce a weekly, teen-age sports radio program originating from the alley.
¶ Dallas' Cotton Bowling Palace provides a barbershop and a beauty parlor open 24 hours a day for bowlers. Owner J. Curtis Sanford is planning a new $3,000,000, 100-lane center with a miniature golf course in the middle of it.
¶ North Kansas City Bowl has an aviary (with a fulltime, $5,000-a-year bird keeper) and an art gallery, hopes to contribute proceeds from the sale of paintings to local charities.
Attracted to the new recreation palaces, an estimated 26.5 million Americans this year will pay $440 million to bowl. The entire bowling business, i.e., investments in alleys, bowling equipment and fees, will gross more than a billion dollars in 1959 for the first time. New bowlers are increasing at the rate of 12%-14% a year. The rules-making American Bowling Congress' paid membership has jumped to 3,250,000 this year from 1,500,000 five years ago, and the number of A.B.C. certified lanes in the U.S. has increased to 87,475 from 59,982 in 1955.
The boom was started by automatic pin-spotting equipment, introduced successfully for the first time by American Machine & Foundry Co. in 1952. Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co. followed with its automatic machines in 1956. Not only did the automated equipment eliminate the vagaries of pin boys, but they also made 24-hour-a-day bowling possible, caused alley owners to start big promotions, notably on TV shows, to keep the alleys busy.