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Whitestone Lanes in Flushing was once described as “the absolute best” bowling alley in the city and has been a neighborhood staple since the 1960s. But now Marco Macaluso wants to raze his longtime family business and redevelop it into a nine-floor residential building, according to rezoning application documents filed this week with the Department of City Planning.
Macaluso did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The news came as a blow to the bowling alley’s longtime patron, Robert Rodriguez, 37, of Jamaica, who has been coming to Whitestone Lanes for nine years.
“It’s gonna be sad. What can you say?” he said when he heard his haunt wouldn’t be spared. “It’s a great hangout spot. After COVID they may have shortened the [hours], but it’s still just as fun. Bowling’s not going anywhere. It’s just sad that they’re closing it down. They should really give it a chance.”
Angel Pabon has been coming to Whitestone Lanes with his family for 15 years.
“Most of the bowling alleys have gone, they’ve disappeared,” he told the Daily News. “The fun of bowling is just being taken away. Real estate [interests] are buying them.”
The filings come ahead of a formal months-long land use review process that would allow for the new property to be constructed in an area largely zoned for light industrial uses and autobody shops. If Macaluso’s application is approved, construction on the new building would likely begin in the fourth quarter of 2023 and finish in 2026, according to the documents. The review process for the application will likely begin later this summer.
According to the application, the planned apartment building would have over 400 units to house more than a thousand people, plus 200 basement parking spots and an outdoor space with trees, pingpong tables and a community garden.
The new development, right across from the Whitestone Expressway, would be taller and denser than most of the surroundings. It would also be more expensive to rent, according to the newly filed Environmental Assessment Statement.
Tenants in the 100-plus income-restricted apartments required by Mandatory Inclusionary Housing would be earning 120% of the median local income, according to the projections, or $58,515 a year versus the $48,619 typical of the surrounding area included in the study.
Occupants of the remaining market-rate units would earn 452% of the median local income, or $220,162 versus $48,619 a year. The average annual household income of the building’s occupants is expected to be $179,750.
A plan to replace the lanes with a mixed-use development reported in 2015 never materialized. But Whitestone Lanes’ days are numbered even if the residential rezoning is not approved. In that case, it would be razed to make way for four single-story retail buildings, according to the plan: “The bowling alley has reached the end of its useful lifespan.”
The bowling alley itself is humble but friendly. The walls surrounding the shiny 48 lanes are adorned with fairy lights. There’s a mini-arcade, a bar and a pro shop selling bowling equipment and offering ball repairs. Before the pandemic the lanes were open 24/7, but the hours were since scaled back.
Whitestone Lanes is just the latest longstanding bowling alley to fall in recent years. Elsewhere in Queens, Richmond Hill’s Van Wyck Lanes and Glendale’s Woodhaven Lanes shuttered in 2008; Bensonhurst’s Maple Lanes and Harlem Lanes in 2012; the city’s oldest bowling alley, Bowlmor Lanes, ended its 76-year run in lower Manhattan in 2014; and Van Nest Lanes in Morris Park, the Bronx, closed in 2021.
Pabon despaired when listing all the bowling alleys that have come and gone. He travels all the way from Brownsville to come to Whitestone Lanes.
“It might seem far,” he said. “But there’s nowhere else for us.”
