Watertown Bowl and Lion's Den
The Watertown Bowl used to exist on Outer Washington Street until being razed in 1989. The steel frame for the sign and the curved concrete walls that marked the entrances still remain.
Contributor note - The property is owned by a man from Rochester, according to a gentleman at Walker's Modular Homes.
The slab foundation of the building is still in place except for a thoroughly demolished portion in the very center (black area on floor plan below), which probably held heating and cooling equipment.
The only actual remnants of the building's interior left in place are some pieces of the old floor tile in three areas, which I've located on the floor plan above.
Notes from visitor - k8eebee
As a teenager back in the 60's, I spent many hours having fun bowling and shooting pool at the Watertown Bowl. My recollection was that it had 48 lanes divided into three sections of sixteen lanes each. During junior high and high school, I bowled in the Intramural Bowling League after school. Although I never won any awards, it was just good, clean fun! I even remember sniffing the paper we kept score on...it smelled so "inky"!!! I distinctly remember that the glasses Pepsi was served in had the Brunswick logo on them in bright orange lettering. In addition, all the Brunswick Bowling Alleys around New York State were listed on each glass. During my senior year of high school, a friend of mine and I decided to start at the top of the list, and on each Friday night we'd pick an alley listed on the glass and go there to bowl and shoot pool. We bowled in Syracuse, Corning, Ithaca, Binghamton, Utica, and so on, just to say we had been to all of them listed on the glass! When we got to the bottom of the list, we started back at the top. It sure made that long, hard, cold winter fly by!
The empty space in the diagram of the layout of "The Bowl" (that's what we called it back then) was the Billiard Hall or Pool Room. I spent many hours there too! It's where I learned how to shoot pool! If memory serves me correctly, there were 24 eight-foot tables (NOT six-foot) each covered in orange felt rather than the typical green. Again, orange being the Brunswick color logo. After moving down South for several years, it took me a long time to get used to shooting pool on a six-foot green felt covered table! Even though I'm 5'1", I still prefer and eight foot table!
One more thing....when coming into the entrance, I believe I recall a bar located straight ahead, sort of glass enclosed. I was so saddened when I moved back up here four years ago, that "The Bowl" was gone forever! It was an integral part of my youth and I'll never forget those times! *