The Bowling Alley
The Brunswick Bowling machines It was January 2020. I climbed the long steep staircase out of the Silver Mill restaurant dining room. A rush of cold air swirled as I stepped into a large storage room. Clutter filled the space, party decorations, tables, old beer signs. But behind all the junk I could see retro blue stripes disappearing into a false wall. I clambered over to a small hole and peered into the darkness. A large room sat hidden above the restaurant. In the gloom, I could read Antler’s Bar and Bowl on the dusty old machines. I was staring at my winter project, renovating the 1950’s bowling alley into employee housing for the restaurant below. In the late 1800’s, this upstairs had been built as a boarding house. But around 1956, someone had the brilliant idea to install a four lane bowling alley above the Antler Restaurant. For decades, it had been a town staple. Piles of old score sheets sat in boxes tucked behind the dormant machines. Dozens of local kids had earned a