JEFFERY MANOR — People used to stop by the bowling alley just to talk to Johnnie Hill.
Hill — who went from picking cotton in Alabama to holding offices tied to Chicago’s Democratic machine — opened South Side laundromats, convenience stores, car washes and bowling alleys, doling out jobs and favors to community members.
But by the time Hill died in 2016 from cancer, his family held on to only Skyway Lanes, 9915 S. Torrence Ave., a 36-lane bowling alley that’s been a neighborhood gathering space since the 1950s, hosting leagues, baby showers, graduations, birthday parties and local high school teams.
One of Hill’s dying wishes was for the alley to stay open, said his daughter, Brunetta Hill-Corley, who runs Skyway Lanes with the help of her husband and two children.
“I told him ‘You’re going home free-of-mind, because I got it,’” Hill-Corley said. “He had a vision for his family to have something other than a 9-to-5. This is our last hurrah.”
Hill-Corley is now looking to raise $1 million through a GoFundMe to keep Skyway Lanes open.
The alley lost many of its weekly leagues, the backbone of the bowling business, after the pandemic shuttered its doors for two years, Hill-Corley said.
“People feared, people died, leagues broke up, people didn’t come back,” said Hill-Corley, whose Tuesday night league has shrunk from 32 teams to 10. “People don’t want to commit to coming out for a 35-week league like they used to.”
The extended closure during the pandemic forced Hill-Corley to take out a disaster relief loan to stay afloat. The property tax assessment of Skyway’s 35,000-square-foot facility more than doubled last year, according to the Cook County Assessor’s Office.
There were once more than 110 alleys in the city during the sport’s heyday in the mid-20th century, bowling pros have told Block Club. Now, there’s a half dozen on the North Side, and even fewer bowling alleys — just three — remaining on the city’s South Side.
Skyway Lanes is the last Black-owned bowling center in Chicago, according to the Chicago Bowling Senate, a branch of the National Bowling Association, a Black bowlers’ organization.
“Skyway is not only a bowling center, but a driving force for the community,” said Keith Hamilton, executive director of the Illinois State Bowling Proprietors Association. “It would a serious loss for serving the South Side.”
The first $400,000 of Skyway’s fundraising campaign is needed to pay off debt, the mortgage and make necessary renovations to keep the bowing alley operable, Hill-Corley said. The rest would be used for facility upgrades. Hill-Corley said she’ll reassess if the business can continue by Juneteenth, which is June 19.
“I’m not closing, but I’ll have to if people don’t come support this place,” Hill-Corley said. “I see the writing on the wall. There would be nowhere to go and nothing to do. People are not going Downtown. They should be able to enjoy themselves close to home.”
The bowling alley filled up on a recent Thursday with regulars and retirees there to compete in a teachers league. Earlier that day, other visitors included Nate “The Great” Walker Jr. and his family from the city’s Chatham neighborhood, who stopped by for a practice round. Walker Jr., who has autism, bowls in a league at Skyway for people with disabilities.
“He has a place to come where they embrace him,” his mother Michelle Walker said. “It’s been a safe haven.”
Tony McGhee, a professional ball driller, runs a pro shop inside Skyway. He’s bowled there since the 1970s, when his mother ran a league for the Illinois Bell Telephone Company. Last week, he fixed up a ball for longtime customer Arthur Wood, who has also been coming to Skyway since the ’70s when he played for the South Shore High School team.
“I grew up in this bowling alley,” McGhee said. “This was a second home.”
The bowling alley, on the site of a former church, has changed hands three times since it opened in the 1950s, Hill-Corley said.
The Hill family bought the business in 2009 from the late Jacoby Dickens, owner of Seaway Bank, once the largest of the city’s former Black-owned banks which drove investment in Black communities when others wouldn’t.
Johnnie Hill had migrated to Chicago from Alabama in the 1950s after fighting in the Korean War. He found work at Wisconsin Steel, just around the corner from the bowling alley he’d own a half-century later.
Hill “loved himself some politics” and made friends in high places, including former 4th Ward Ald. Claude W.B. Holman, an ally of Mayor Richard J. Daley, his daughter said. Those connections helped him get hired as a court bailiff, DMV license examiner and city water department official at various points.
Hill later became a top assistant to Holman’s successor, former Ald. Timothy C. Evans, and he campaigned for the city’s first Black mayor, Harold Washington, whose portrait is displayed in Skyway Bowl’s event room.
After Washington’s death in office, Evans lost a high-profile battle with former Ald. Eugene Sawyer (6th) to succeed him. Evans joined the bench and later become the county’s chief judge. Hill ran to replace him as 4th Ward Democratic committeeman in 1991, losing to Toni Preckwinkle, who has held onto the job while ascending to president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners.
Hill started buying up South Side businesses as his political clout waned, his daughter said, whether it be an apartment building or a dry cleaners. He did most of the repairs and renovations himself.
“Whenever my parents went into something, it was raggedy,” Hill-Corley said. “They believed in improvement and creating faith in the community. People knew they could come to Mr. Hill.”
Hill bought and later sold the former New Halsted Bowl in the West Pullman neighborhood, even though he “never threw a bowling ball in his life,” Hill-Corley said. Her mother wanted one.
Neighbors urged the family to save the declining Skyway Lanes, which was on the market, Hill-Corley said. Hill was in his 70s when he bought the business.
“I don’t think nobody else would have done it,” Hill-Corley said. “My father was not the type to sit down. He was going to work until the day he died. And he did.”
Hill-Corley, who has three college degrees and spent two decades working at IBM, joined the family business in 2009 after a stint in politics in the south suburbs. She’s found herself shaking stuck pinsetters and planning kid’s birthday parties.
“His spirit is still here. I feel his weight on my back,” Hill-Corley said. “We’re still here entertaining people. We get to see that they’re happy.”
More than 70 million people go bowling once a year, but “the repeat business is not what it once looked like,” Hamilton said. As competitive leagues decline, many alleys try to survive on casual bowlers who come infrequently but “complain less and pay more,” Hamilton said.
“From the corporate world to people getting out of the factories, you’d get out of work and go bowl together,” said Hamilton, who noted a silver lining that high school participation is growing. “The game has evolved. But we lost a generation.”
Hill-Corley, who still bowls in a weekly league at Skyway, said it’s much harder for her pick up spares and keep the business rolling these days. Fewer mechanics know how to fix pinsetters. Maintaining the lanes is more expensive. She’s had to raise the price per game, which has upset some regulars who’ve come to the alley for decades.
“Communities have gone through so much change and teardowns,” Hill-Corley said. “The public can be rough to work with.”
Hill-Corley and other Chicago bowling business owners tell Block Club that the large special-use properties needed to house bowling alleys are now often more valuable than the businesses inside them.
“These places are battleships,” Hill-Corley said.
A Cook County Assessor’s Office spokesperson said in a statement that Skyway’s property tax assessment spike put it closer in line with other bowling alleys around the city.
“However, we understand that significant assessment changes may be difficult for property owners,” the spokesperson said. “We plan to reach out to the owners in this case to discuss their individual situation.”
Hill-Corley said the mounting troubles have left her with no choice but to ask the public for help. She’s had job offers to leave Skyway before “but told them I couldn’t do it,” she said.
She wants to keep her family’s last business.
Soul and R&B music fills the alley. The grill recently added a chef who worked at the Palmer House. A game is still $2 on Mondays and Thursdays from noon-8 p.m. Some nights Hill-Corley has a DJ come in. There’s a line dancing class and wedding receptions to plan.
In her weekly league, Hill-Corley still bowls around a 150 average.
“I hold my own,” she said.
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