Among the many things I've learned perusing old Staten Island maps is that once upon a time, when not everyone drove, neighborhoods were more mixed. There were more stores and restaurants in the middle of residential areas. There were also more entertainment venues, including bowling alleys and clubs. Once upon a time, there was a place that had both, right on
Davis Avenue between Henderson and Castleton, called, appropriately enough, the Davis Club.
I can't find a lot of information about the club, though I've sort of pieced together a bit of its history. While it just looked like a typical commercial building with apartments overhead, there was a bowling alley extending out behind it. This is clear from the 1917 and 1936 maps. I can't tell if it was always called the Davis Club or picked up the name somewhere along the way.
The SI Advance collection I've access to only starts in 1945 and the first clear reference to the club is in 1946. Another thing about the past is that people were way more social, belonging to clubs and teams. The Curtis Community Center League played its games at Curtis HS and seems to have been made up of teams from assorted businesses. The first mention of the Davis Club is this report on a game between the Davis Club Cagers and the Bement Drug Quintet (Bement Pharmacy was on the corner of Forest and Bement)
I pulled a few ads from the late forties. It seems like that's when the club was at its height, but I wouldn't swear to that. With bowling alleys at the back, it probably wasn't as snazzy as Brighton Avenue's Miami Club, but it did have enough connections to get Buddy Rich in there at least for a few nights.
The club changed ownership in 1952, as announced in the Advance ad below
An ad from 1955 makes it seem like it's less of a musical destination than it used to be, instead, focusing on the bowling alleys and the club's rentability
In 1962, the club changed hands again, this time becoming the Club Isle. From the ads, it's obvious it became geared to a black audience. Over the next few months, it played host to jazz and r 'n' b musicians. By October, it went bankrupt.
June 7th, 1962
Still, some sort of bar operated out of the building as regular ads were looking for bar maids. Whatever happened, County Clerk records show the building changed hands around 1970. In 1975 it was operated as a warehouse and caught fire. I'm not sure when the building eventually was demolished, but the lot is empty in the 1990 tax photos. Today its lot is filled with a semi-detached built in 1993.
This whole block of Davis Avenue, from Henderson to Castleton, underwent a tremendous transformation over the last forty years. Along with the old Club Davis, other building along the block fell into disrepair and were abandoned. Community Board One made a concerted effort to get them demolished and eventually the City did just that. Finally, in the late eighties and early nineties these now empty lots were mostly filled with fairly unattractive attached houses.
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