Last Frame on Your Card Garden Palace & Van Houten Lanes
In the not-so-distant past, Clifton was home to many bowling centers, once boasting nearly 150 lanes. Over the last decade, the picture became bleak. It started with the closure of Athenia’s Van Houten Lanes in May of 2015. Before that, city staples like Bowlero and Rizzuto-Berra Lanes (later Astro Bowl) in Styertowne shuttered their doors. Today, Garden Palace Lanes is the latest to go up for sale. Located at 42 Lakeview Avenue, Garden Palace would have marked 83 years this January. Over the years, Garden Palace grew to offer keglers 16 lanes, electronic scoring and more innovations. When asked why they were selling, the Covid-19 had an unsurprising role. “Twenty-five percent capacity?” said a person who answered the phone. “You can’t make it with four lanes.” Clifton residents experienced a lengthy goodbye when bidding farewell to the old Van Houten Lanes building. The lanes, like multiple city bowling alleys before it, closed in May 2015. Over the last five years, the property changed hands multiple times until a Newark-based company purchased it for $700,000 in November of 2019. This past October, partial demolition began with the plan set to introduce a Dollar General
Store. The building, dating to the early 1920s, drew in many customers during the 1950s and 60’s. The building’s location, mere blocks from the Passaic border, helped it attract generations of avid bowlers.
In 1999 at Van Houten Lanes, manager Eric Sudhalter, at left, with his daughter Ashley and Rick Lamonico with his son Skye. The property, as seen today from next door’s NOC Auto Body.
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January 2021 • Cliftonmagazine.com