Bowling Alley

A 12-lane bowling alley. No, this is not the punch line to a joke in a stand-up comic's routine. It is a description of the Burholme Bowl bowling alley, at 7226 Rising Sun Ave. It is the mom-and-pop operation of Philadelphia's bowling-alley industry - an industry that in recent years has suffered its share of failures. "A lot of lanes have gone bankrupt," said Virginia Straub, a part owner of the alley, which has been operating since 1928. "Sometimes your building is worth more being utilized for something else.

A Glassboro bowling alley's appeal of a Borough Council decision denying a request for an expanded liquor license will be heard Friday in Glassboro before an administrative law judge. Play-Glass Inc., which owns a bowling alley/restaurant on Delsea Drive, asked the council about two months ago to grant an expansion of the company's liquor license, but members refused. The expansion would have allowed liquor to be served outside the restaurant, borough solicitor Joseph Lisa said at last week's council meeting.

Michael and Danny Brigidi's yearlong run at opening a restaurant in their Lansdale bowling alley will encounter yet another hurdle this month. At a Jan. 19 Zoning Hearing Board meeting, the brothers must present their plans to put in the restaurant and purchase a liquor license. Last week, borough officials made it clear that they did not want the project approved. The Lans-Bowl Academy already is zoned for commercial use, so a restaurant is allowed as long as the Brigidis secure the required building permits.

A Willingboro man who was shot over the weekend at a bowling alley died of his wounds Wednesday at Cooper Hospital-University Medical Center in Camden, authorities said yesterday. Carey White, 26, was pronounced dead about 6 p.m., said Detective Sgt. Jack Smith, a spokesman for Burlington County Prosecutor Steven Raymond. A second victim in the bowling alley shooting, Kareem Finay, 23, also of Willingboro, was listed in stable condition yesterday at Cooper Hospital. Authorities were seeking a man identified as Jamal Ellis, 21, of Beverly, in the shootings, which occurred early Sunday at the Fair Lanes Lounge on Route 130 in Edgewater Park.

Looming between a pipe dream and reality lie plans to build a CVS drugstore on the site of an abandoned and dilapidated bowling alley on the west side of town. A pipe dream because the developer, Chancellor Development Group, has yet to submit site plans to the township Zoning Board; and yet reality, because the developer has had informal talks with the township for the proposed CVS, and has received a tentative thumbs up for the project. According to Township Administrator Ken Carruth, before submitting plans to the Zoning Board, Chancellor wanted to discuss past flooding problems at the two-acre site, which lies between Marlton Pike and Beacon Avenue, where the Ivy Lanes bowling alley now stands empty and abandoned.

Although the Plaza Bowl in the West Goshen shopping plaza was supposed to have closed Monday, the owner of the bowling alley plans to sign a one-year lease extension offered by the shopping center's owner. "When I sign the lease, I'll feel relieved," said Elizabeth Hettel, manager and part-owner of the bowling alley, as she sat on a stool behind the front desk, squinting through cigarette smoke at the empty lanes. The only sounds came from fans whirring overhead and video figures zapping across screens.

WHATEVER way you frame it, a group of men with their morals in the gutter did not spare any regard for human life when they opened fire in a bowling alley early yesterday, striking one man down, according to police. About 12:30 a.m., five men were denied entry to a private party at PEP Bowl, on Broad Street near Federal, in Point Breeze, police said. A fight broke out between one of the uninvited men and a man at the party, at which point two of the uninvited guests pulled out guns and began shooting, police said.

Dressed for the weather in a trenchcoat and hat, Jenkintown Mayor Ted Jensen stood under the concrete awning at the entrance to the Thunderbird Lanes bowling alley and reminisced about the constantly changing face of the borough he has headed for 15 years. Above him, constant rains poured from the heavens. Behind him, a bulldozer pummeled the walls that have stood since the alley opened in 1959. It is the latest casualty of change in Jenkintown. In its place will spring Summersgate, a 64-unit personal-care facility for the elderly.

Staring at his family's bowling alley as it was engulfed in flames last week, Charles Loyle knew. "That building went up so quickly that we knew it had to be an accelerant in there," Loyle, 82, said yesterday in front of the charred Loyle Lanes Bowling Center, a local landmark that would have celebrated its 50th anniversary Feb. 10. Investigators yesterday confirmed Loyle's suspicions about the Jan. 11 blaze and shocked the community with...

HARRISBURG - Lawmakers are awaiting release of an audit that they hope will explain how the state Department of Public Welfare approved payments for chandeliers, a home bowling alley, and other seemingly extravagant items with funds meant to provide health care and employment support for Pennsylvanians with intellectual disabilities. Those expenditures - as well as state payments on home mortgages, luxury cars, and flea-dipping for a therapeutic cat - came to light during a Senate Health and Welfare Committee hearing this week.

Mitt Romney's presidential campaign rolled into Pennsylvania on Wednesday evening with scant nod to the April 24 primary vote and a laserlike focus on the one that comes seven months from now. "I have only one thing to ask," Romney told a cheering crowd in Broomall. "Help me defeat Barack Obama in November. " Fresh off victories Tuesday in Wisconsin, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, the former Massachusetts governor hardly acknowledged Republican rival Rick Santorum during the evening campaign stop in western Delaware County.

MAYOR NUTTER talked Fox 29 out of airing a video that captured him spanking the buttocks of a blonde with whom he drank and bowled at North Bowl (909 N. 2nd), say sources familiar with the situation. A Fox 29 viewer recorded Nutter and his female companion having a blast about 2 a.m. one day last summer, sources say. We're told the cellphone video is of high-enough quality that you can hear the two butt slaps Nutter delivered to the woman, identified by our sources only as Andrea , as she got up to bowl.

Two people were in custody Monday in an early morning shooting at a South Philadelphia bowling alley the day before. Gregorio Chambers, 17, and Ikeem Johnson, 24, both of Philadelphia, were charged in the shooting at Pep Bowl, at Broad and Federal Streets. According to officials, Chambers and Johnson were part of a group of five men who tried to gain entrance to a private party at the bowling alley about 12:30 a.m. Sunday. As one of them tried to force his way in, a fight broke out. Two of the uninvited guests pulled out handguns and fired into the party.

WHATEVER way you frame it, a group of men with their morals in the gutter did not spare any regard for human life when they opened fire in a bowling alley early yesterday, striking one man down, according to police. About 12:30 a.m., five men were denied entry to a private party at PEP Bowl, on Broad Street near Federal, in Point Breeze, police said. A fight broke out between one of the uninvited men and a man at the party, at which point two of the uninvited guests pulled out guns and began shooting, police said.

Two alleged gunmen are in custody this afternoon accused of opening fire inside a South Philadelphia bowling alley. Police charged Gregorio Chambers, 17, and Ikeem Johnson, 24, in the early Sunday morning shooting at the PEP Bowling Alley on the 1200 block of South Broad Street. According to officials, Chambers and Johnson, both of Philadelphia, were part of a group of five men who tried to gain entrance about 12:30 a.m. Sunday to a private party at the bowling alley. As one of them tried to force his way in, a fight broke out. Two of the uninvited guests pulled out handguns and fired into the party.

Hello there Jared sat behind Liz in freshman social studies at Boyertown Junior High School East. Even though they only spoke when Liz had to pass Jared papers in class, she soon had a crush on him. Liz's brother, Stephen, was Jared's teammate on the 1997 Junior Legion baseball team, so Liz had a handy excuse to attend and watch Jared, the pitcher. Liz felt so woozy in Jared's presence, and had shared her crush with so many people, that by the next school year, she assumed Jared knew all about her feelings.

HARRISBURG - Lawmakers are awaiting release of an audit that they hope will explain how the state Department of Public Welfare approved payments for chandeliers, a home bowling alley, and other seemingly extravagant items with funds meant to provide health care and employment support for Pennsylvanians with intellectual disabilities. Those expenditures - as well as state payments on home mortgages, luxury cars, and flea-dipping for a therapeutic cat - came to light during a Senate Health and Welfare Committee hearing last week.

Marking his first public appearance during a weekend curfew he imposed to curb youth attacks on the street, Mayor Nutter is making his way this evening to a Kensington recreation center to bowl with youngsters. A Facebook and Twitter campaign by the Philadelphia Youth Commission spread word of its hastily-arranged bowling tournament at Erie Lanes and had drawn up to 300 children and teenagers in its first hour, Jordan Harris, executive director of the commission, said around 8 p.m., before Nutter's scheduled arrival.

As weddings go, the Northern Liberties affair was somewhat atypical, what with the presence of saws and sanders, and the stockpiles of salvaged lumber. But this union, consecrated on a handmade stage built of railroad ties and bowling alley sections, was nevertheless emotional - no doubt most so for Brendan Isaac Jones. On that day last month, Jones watched his baby be joined with another - or, rather, with others. Greensaw Design & Build L.L.C., Jones' small construction business on North Fourth Street, became a worker-owned cooperative.