His father, John C. Spencer, had built a bowling alley at Belmont & Cicero Avenues in Chicago and William owned the Spencer Coals, a semi-pro baseball team.
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(Left) William A. Spencer (seated, at right) signs a lease on December 18, 1964, for Spencer’s Marina City Bowl. At left is William L. McFetridge, president of BSEIU Local 1, the union local that had one-third interest in Marina City. Standing are Charles R. Swibel, president of Marina Management Corporation, and Frank C. Wells, vice president of L. J. Sheridan & Company, a real estate broker. |
Spencer had a 42-lane operation in St. Louis and two bowling facilities in Racine, Wisconsin. He was also a pilot and the inventor of the automatic gate at parking lots, which he first built for the parking lot of his father’s bowling alley.
Besides 38 lanes on the second floor of the office building – that Bertrand Goldberg Associates would design – the facility would have a restaurant, cocktail lounge, and an area for billiards.
Bowling had always been a part of the plan for Marina City. The original design, according to BGA architect Ben Honda, was for 54 lanes of bowling, stretching from Dearborn Street to State Street. “But then when the National Design Center came in as a tenant, they wanted a chunk of it to poke up through the bowling alley,” he said in 1999. “So, then the number of lanes were reduced.”
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Other recreational activities at Marina City in the mid-1960s included ice skating, a swimming pool and gymnasium, and boating.
(Right) Ben Honda (left in photo) with Bertrand Goldberg. |
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(Left) United States Bowling Congress champion Missy Parkin (at left), the only woman in the competition, bowls in the GEICO PBA Team Shootout at Marina City’s 10pin Bowling Lounge on June 1, 2011. ESPN videotaped the entire event for broadcast later that month. |
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