Vassar Yesterday

Bowling

By Thomas Hopkins

“Bowling is one of the many sports enjoyed by Vassar students,” reads the note on the back of this photograph. “Setting up the pins for their partners in the bowling alley of the Helen Kenyon Hall of Physical Education,” the note continues, are Polly Utter Parrish ’55, Eda Contiguglia Holt ’54, and Joyce Belva Kaiser ’55. Do these lanes still exist? Alas, aspiring Lebowskis, they do not: at some point in the past three or four decades — we’ve received differing accounts as to exactly when — the pins fell for the last time. The space is now used “as a varsity weight room,” says physical education professor Roman Czula, “and also as a workout room for crew.” But take heart: strikes and turkeys are still to be had just a mile north of campus at the Hoe Bowl Mardi-Bob Lanes on Taft Avenue. Don’t forget your shoe-rental money.—T.H.