By N. R. KLEINFIELD

As New York struggles to resurrect its economy, it needs powerful new engines of growth. Wall Street may look sturdier, but it will never again be the old Wall Street, when $10 routinely became $1 million during your lunch break. Another eruption in real estate prices? Dubious. There must be another answer.

There is.
Bowling alleys. U

pstairs at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan there are velvet ropes staffed by a black-suited bouncer. Why is he there? To select the appropriate customers to bowl at the overhauled Leisure Time Bowl. Yes, there is a dress code at the bowling alley.

“We don’t allow those real large jeans that almost fall off your hips,” said Ayman Kamel, the executive general manager there. “Or those bandannas that represent gangs. None of those big visual gold chains.”

How about a bowling shirt?

“Well, as long as it’s a fine-looking shirt,” he said.

By month’s end, the place will be renamed Frames, and it will open a swank restaurant and V.I.P. lanes (two private lanes with bar), followed by a nightclub later in the year.

Not far away is Lucky Strike Lanes, another upscale alley that opened late in 2008 and is an offshoot of a chain that began in Hollywood. Alleys in other boroughs may follow. Downtown, there is Bowlmor Lanes, a front-runner among the contemporized alleys that was restyled under new ownership in 1997. Three months ago it opened a companion Coney Island games-and-burlesque club called Carnival.

In October, the Bowlmor alley is set to open as the largest retail tenant in the former New York Times building in Midtown. It will cost over $20 million.

In 2007, a comforter factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, became the Gutter bar, with a retro eight-lane alley, the first new one to open in Brooklyn in half a century. Brooklyn Bowl, a combination music club/bowling alley , followed in Williamsburg last summer. Harlem Lanes arrived in 2006 , the first bowling alley in Harlem since the 1980s. These join the more established 300 New York alley at Chelsea Piers.

O.K., maybe this trend isn’t big enough to lift the entire city, but it’s something. These are not the seedy bowling alleys of yesteryear, but hipster alleys often interwoven with restaurants, V.I.P. lounges, clubs, sports bars. Dark lighting. D.J.’s . Waiter service. Dress codes. Coolness.

The bowling is often a way to kill time between drink orders. The alleys rely heavily on private parties. Some customers never bother to bowl.

Meanwhile, conventional alleys continue to close. All told, there are 23 bowling alleys in the city, according to the United States Bowling Congress, the sport’s governing body. Back in the 1970s, it figured there were close to 200.

Bowlmor is owned by Strike Holdings, and at its downtown headquarters, Thomas Shannon, the chief executive, spoke about the old bowling, and the new bowling that might save New York. “It used to be that if you wanted to go bowling, you had to suffer some form of deprivation,” he said. “Bad food - you know, the hot dog on a roller. Stale tap beer. No service.”

Bowlmor and the upscale alleys typically shun leagues. They don’t want guys who show up with bowling outfits and beer bellies and want to pay $1.95 a game. “They want the cheapest, most miserable experience,” Mr. Shannon said. “I would describe it as a Stalinist experience.”

At Bowlmor , the lanes were crammed, people blissfully saving New York’s economy while dressed to impress.

Recently at Leisure Time, owned by a Danish company called Big Bowl, people were bowling but not bowling well. Scores were pathetic. 51. 17. 7.

Mr. Kamel, the general manager, pointed out the bar top for the soon-to-open restaurant. Onyx. Cost: $100,000.

Cozy Lanes in Ozone Park, Queens, is on the other end of the spectrum. The food? Let’s not talk about it. A V.I.P. lounge? None planned.

Leagues are always going. The place has a tired feel, and recently John Sutton, 68, was bowling there with a 188 average.

Can bowling save the city?

“Maybe that disco bowling can,” he said. “But it’s not saving bowlers. It’s not saving me.”


Jennifer Jade Ledesna, below, at Brooklyn Bowl, where music and food take precedence over actual bowling. / PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL NAGLE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES