Ball Square Bowling - Boston.com/Somerville article & photos

[ron_newman]

Boston Globe correspondent Danielle Dreilinger came to our Ball Square Bowling meetup last Saturday and has now published an article about the meetup and the alley:

The bowling alley you never knew. The article says that Green Line construction may threaten the bowling alley with demolition.

There's also an accompanying photo slideshow by Rob Vassegh: A night at the alley, including cool photos of the pin-setting machinery as well as our always photogenic hahathor.

I don't know whether the article will appear in print as well.

Comments

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

What a great article! And pics! I had thought she was just writing for a student paper.

I'm sad to hear that the Green Line is going to displace it, though that seems to keep getting pushed back. Get your bowling parties in now, folks!

[rethcir.livejournal.com]

Well, with any luck, Butch may do better for himself taking an eminent domain payout than keeping the alley up and running. It is a shame to see candlepin die a slow death though.

[svilletheatre.livejournal.com]

What an interesting article... I remember bowling there with my grandfather when I was a kid.

It is very sad that his son passed away and he is unable to leave the business to him (and to a younger generation that might fight the eminent domain issue.) I can think of a dozen people offhand who would kill to be left that alley and who could make it a more accessible and exciting place.

It seems to me that a case could be made for fitting the station around the building (indeed, so much useless open space seems to surround T stations) but it would take neighborhood support for that to happen (ala the DSTF versus the Red Line's initial desire to tear half of Davis Square down.) Given that most people are unaware the alley is still in operation that seems unlikely... but who knows?

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

omg, imagine designing the station to INCLUDE a bowling alley.

[ron_newman]

The article was briefly linked from yesterday's Boston.com front page, and has received five comments. Since we're planning to do this again some time in the summer, we should find out if this is still the case:

"at the end of the season it was so hot inside with little air conditioning you wanted to hurry so you could go across the street for a beer to cool down"

Edit: re " I had thought she was just writing for a student paper. ":

There were two reporters interested in our outing -- the Globe reporter whose article I linked in this post, and also an Emerson College student, hallie_mathia, who posted this to DSLJ the day after our bowling meetup.

[bettyw.livejournal.com]

I don't get the comment about "incomprehensible" score sheets - the only non-standard thing about them is that they are NOT surrounded by ads for local businesses (the usual way alleys pay for getting them printed). But then I'm old enough to have been a kid going bowling in the '60s - hence the sweater in my icon, knit for me by my grandmother... and even then I cursed b/c the pattern books only had 10-pin designs!

[ron_newman]

I wish she hadn't put that in the article, but I too found the score sheets confusing. Candlepin is normally scored vertically, rather than horizontally like tenpins. There was space at the top of each column to write in a bowler's name, but the frame numbers 1 through 10 were also at the top, instead of at the left side where they belonged.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

That guy sounds so sad. Stories like that makes me want to FIX things for people, even when it's not possible.

[kenmedford.livejournal.com]

Article probably will appear in Sunday's Globe North section. Those articles typically post to the Web a day or two in advance.

[ron_newman]

Nope, wasn't in today's Globe. I suppose it could still run next Thursday, but I doubt it.

Edit, 2/19: Nope, didn't run yesterday either. I asked the reporter if it was likely to see print, and she said probably not -- GlobeNorth circulates from Somerville all the way into southern New Hampshire, and doesn't have much room for what she calls 'City Weekly-style stories'.

[fefie.livejournal.com]

Here is MassDOT's overall plan for the Ball Sq station. You can see that the station itself is not on the bowling alley footprint, but the platform is situated behind the building.

https://www.commentmgr.com/Projects/1228/docs/043_DEIR-EA_V2_Figure%203.7-18_Ball_Square_Station_Layout.pdf

and

https://www.commentmgr.com/Projects/1228/docs/044_DEIR-EA_V2_Figure%203.7-19_Ball_Square_Station_Plan.pdf

If there is community interest (such as neighbors, architect/planner types, city officials...) in pursuing a way to incorporate the bowling alley in the Green Line plan for Ball Sq., it needs to get mobilized with a concrete proposal. MassDOT will be working on detailed station plans/designs this year, and that includes areas around the stations. Community participation is critical for getting what we want in the Green Line project.