Dickson Bowling/Dr. Junk

In 1967, Helen and John Dobos Sr. bought Dickson Bowling when it was on Dickson Street. In 1972, they opened Bowlaway on Elgin before selling it off in 1985. It's now known as the Cambridge Bingo Center. They then moved Dickson Bowling to its current location on Ainslie Street in September 1978 after having a building built there. John's son, John junior, worked at the bowling arena as a high-school student before taking over the business after getting a business degree in college. However, in recent years John had noticed a decline in popularity with the bowling alley, going from 250 kids in his youth program to just 100. In 2017, John had decided to sell the property to a developer who is looking to build apartments in its place. The bowling alley was closed on May 7, and has sat empty since.

I will be returning to take more photos of this location.

-----Ishootthings adds------ The other building on the lot was Dr.Junk. A store that sold like almost anything. It was open for a long while and the owner, Peter Ward, THE junk doctor, let the building fall into disrepair and worked a deal out with the City of Cambridge to keep operating "Petes Corner" in the state it was AS LONG as the building was up to standards by ''X'' date (from what I dug up and come to understand). He didnt repair what needed to be done and the City shut it down. From an article in the Guelph Mercury and a few others as well, Peter was told his store along with another building across the road, were coming down a week after he was out. That was in 2014. The building was bad in 2020. The first time I scoped it, the basement was TOTALLY flooded. The top of a table could just be seen over the water thru the basement window I found open. I kinda wrote it off for a bit and had found in the meantime Dickson Bowl had a POE. I went thru the alley (if you could call it that), and always kept my eye on Petes Corner. A short while later, I saw from Ainslie St on a quick walk-by at night that that place had a POE as well. I have a fear instilled on me by another member on here who has been doing this stuff off and on for longer than I have and he has no locations or galleries. Falling into a flooded basement. Who knows what you will fall into, how deep, where the way out is, if the stairs out are still there. ECT. Just messy it would be. I skipped looking in the basement incase I saw something I didnt like. I went in and now Ive crossed it off my "list". The basement has steady water or did coming in from I dont know and exiting thru I dont know. Some floors were so burnt/rotted as to not be able to be called a floor. Roof appeared to be partially holey. Burnt maybe. Not a beginner explore for this one (although its got some cool little trinkets spread thru) because I had trouble accessing a part or 2 or deemed them inaccessible (to me). Peter passed away June 19th 2019. His online obituary is in the links.

At the back of the fenced off (unfortunately) lot is the foundation for the bread mill that used to be here. I believe a picture is at the end of my gallery of Dr. Junk and its a nice spot. There is a set of stairs going down from the top of the hill/overgrown lot. I got a thing for mill foundations and mills tho. One of my things. Maybe one day Ill shoot it.

Later on as Pikaswed420 and I were in the area scoping another few places, we stopped and talked to a older lady who asked us a few questions. She remembers them gutting Dickson Bowl and people squatting there and also remembers Petes Corner closing the doors and still sees people go in either of them occasionally but remembers before the City CLOSED them both forcibly. Might have been landlords work later on as the welded doors and metal grate is different than anything I seen before. The place we were scoping, is in decent shape (well the one) and she told us to go ahead and "finger a way in" as in her words, "had been waiting for someone break in and was surprised someone hadnt already", and she thought Pikaswed420 and I wanted a place to squat. I told her no and explained what we do and we had a great chat with a woman who had seen more shit than we had both of us combined. Age is just a number. She was wicked. When the relevant place gets put up, Ill add moar to the story in the right place as the conversation went quite a bit further. Really interesting cool person. "You can follow a liar, but you cant follow a thief" she told us (we were not doing any thieving tho). Good quote. True. We prolly gonna get a tour of her place as we started talking about the history and she told us about the stairs in her place that were for slaves back in the day (says her landlord) but I believe it. Met some REAL interesting great people in odd places/situations.