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Post by Mr. Action on Mar 14, 2006 3:47:23 GMT -5
The modern day action bowler doesn't have a clue to what real action was like 30 to 40 years ago.
If any of todays real bowlers could go back in time and walk into Central Lanes in the mid sixties on a Saturday night they would think they died and went to action heaven. You would have found all the alleys on both sides of the house going with with action, featuring some of the best bowlers in the Country. There were literally hundreds of guys watching the matches and betting big money on on the side. Lemon and the Horn were unbelievable.
A Pba event doesn't even come close to matching for pure excitment any Saturday nite there when all the greats walked through the door to go head to head against the best around.
Especially a guy like Lou C would have came in his pants if could of been part of the mid sixties action.
The amount of different houses that had big time action, like Ave M Bowl which had it 5 or six nites a week for 2 to 3 years running was really something else.
Just watching guys like the Horn, Lemon, Shlegal, Ralph Engan, the list is actually so big it's un-real, the amount of legit hi quality bowlers involved in action from that era was truly amazing.
Just for the fun of it you guys should add to this list who you think was great from that time period (1960 through 1975) and what houses they called home.
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Post by mikethestrike on Mar 15, 2006 18:27:27 GMT -5
If you remember Central in the sixties, then you must remember Gun Post. There was more action at Gun Post than any house in the Bronx, and maybe anywhere, until they got raided and the action moved to Central. The best bowlers I remember from those day were Lemon, Ralph Engan, Frank Medici and others from Gun Post, Lou Harris and Harry the Horse from Tremont, Howie Palefski from Pel-Park, Dewey Blair from Central, Hank Burroughs from Skytop, Ernie Shlegel from Inwood. There's a lot more, but I can't remember everyone. Ralph Engan threw the strongest ball I ever saw in those days.
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Post by Mr. Action on Mar 15, 2006 20:07:05 GMT -5
For what ever reason I don't know but I never had the pleasure of going to Gun Post. Exactly where in the Bronx was it.
What days did GP usually have action and what years.
Who were the main action bowlers that called GP their home.
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Post by mikethestrike on Mar 15, 2006 23:24:53 GMT -5
For some reason, I dont know of any top action bowlers of that time that actually called Gun Post their house. But bowlers from all over the city Jersey, you name it, came for action. Every bowler that I mentioned on my previous post bowled action at Gun Post. The main years there were the early to the middle sixties. Then the cops raided the place and everything moved to Central. It was located at the intersection of Gun Hill Road and Boston Post Road that’s how it got its name. It was on the northwest corner. Maybe because it was on a corner it was laid out a little funny. It had three main sections, one facing the Post Road that was where most of the big action took place, another section facing north and a small section facing Gun Hill Road, and the food counter right in the middle of all of them. Friday nights and Saturday nights were unbeleivable, action all over the place, all the top shooters, all night long nonstop until the morning, you had to wait on line to get something to eat, thats how jammed it was.
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Post by Mr. Action on Mar 16, 2006 0:44:14 GMT -5
In that same time period Ave M Bowl had the same type of big action, all those same top action bowlers would be there mainly during the week, the house would be packed all night long, most of the time all the lanes would be filled with matches.
Did you ever come to Ave M in Brooklyn.
Other big Brooklyn action houses in the 60s were Seaview Lanes, Colony bowl, Kings Lanes, Strand Lanes, Melody Lanes, Gil Hodgers, Leader Lanes, Bedford Bowl, and a few others...
Now i understand why a lot of the biggest names weren't around in Brookly that much on the weekends, they were in the Bronx.
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