Jim and Jane Barber. Barber announced that after 79 years, the Lucky Strike Bowling lanes will close.
BY STEVE KRAUSE
LYNN — After 79 years, the Lucky Strike Lanes will close, leaving the city one step closer to losing the sport entirely.
Lynn once had 16 bowling centers citywide, according to owner Jim Barber. Today, there are just two: his and the Lynnway Sports Center, which is in talks to convert the building into a marijuana dispensary.
Barber, who purchased the business from Joseph and Emmy O’Connor in 2000, but had managed it since the 1990s, said it was time to retire. The candlepin lanes will close on Sunday, Aug. 14.
“It can be a grinding job,” said Barber, a world-class bowler who appeared on Candlepin Bowling Stars with Don Gillis 17 times. “It’s time.”
Barber told The Item Wednesday that the building will be sold to the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, a nonprofit that assists families who are transitioning into permanent housing.
The 24,000-square-foot property on Buffum Street pays about $25,000 a year in annual real estate taxes that will be lost to the city when the nonprofit closes the deal.
“We couldn’t be happier that they are going to be in the building,” said Jane Barber, his wife. “This is a good organization, with good people. And Lord knows we need good people.”
The coalition is not a shelter, Barber said. Rather, it is an agency that assists the homeless who are transitioning into permanent housing. Among its services is a furniture bank that will help families. Another is the “Bed For Every Child” initiative.
The Barbers said they would have preferred to sell to someone who would keep the lanes open. But that no one came forward.
“Times have changed so much since when we first started,” Jane Barber said. “The dynamics of the city have changed. Back then, General Electric employed over 40,000 people and most of them lived in Lynn. Bowling was a popular thing to do.”
Now, she said, there are too many other forms of entertainment while interest in the sport has dwindled.
Lucky Strike was established in 1937 by Michael Faia, who converted a car dealership into a state-of-the-art 18-lane bowling center. As the sport’s popularity grew in the 1960s with the advent of the Candlepin Bowling Stars television show, Faia added a second floor.
Jim Barber, a former president of the Massachusetts Bowling Association, began his association with Lucky Strike in 1972. In 2000, when the O’Connors, daughter and son-in-law to Faia, retired, Barber and his family bought it.
“It’s been quite a career to go from employee to manager to owner of Lucky Strike Lanes,” Barber said.
He acknowledged that closing the bowling center will be a bittersweet moment.
“It’ll be sad for the family and for Lynn,” said Barber, who was inducted into the Candlepin Hall of Fame in 1999. It marks the end of an era, he said.
“The city will lose a 79-year institution and an iconic landmark.”
On Sunday, Aug. 14, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Barber family will host a “Grand Closing” when the Lucky Strike community can bowl “a string or two” for free, “and to reminisce,” he said.
Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].
