I was curious, do you have any idea how many people live in New York and visit this place every year?

Millions.

So do you know how many people know us?

Almost no one.

But we are here.

We've been here since Peter Minuet.

In 1987, an article in the New York Daily News magazine told of an Australian lawn bowler who noted "bowling green" on a city map and imagined a delightful roll-up with some Wall Street bowlers.

Well, bowling green was still there, but no jacks, no bowling mats.

The Aussie was over two centuries late for that game.

But if he visited Central Park, he could have played some ends with the members of the New York Lawn Bowling Club.

We've been bowling here for a hundred years.

Lawn bowling was part of New York City.

Before New York City was called New York City.

Have you been in Central Park and seen the people wandering around in white and they like keep rolling like a circular thing?

Well, that's what I do.

I would come out here every day if I could.

I love this game.

It's almost like a new sport, right?

At least to my generation, no one's ever heard of this game.

Our club really is one of the best kept secrets in New York City.

It's the only place in the park where a senior can beat a young person at the game.

Let's keep playing because I'm going to kick your ass.

Right?

Seriously.

Playing the clarinet is my other passion, and that's what I do in the winter when I can't bowl.

>> I definitely was here in '86, and everybody really wore white back then.

And they kept asking me, you're always here, why don't you try out the game?

I tried it out and I came back the following weekend.

Well, I was just standing by the fence, you know, watching the activities, watching them play.

I was approached by some of the players who were very friendly and outgoing and they invited me to come and try it.

It was wonderful.

I live close by.

I live on 67th Street and I passed by the green many, many times and was always sort of curious what these people dressed in white were doing.

There were these people standing around looking at some bowls on the green and pointing and arguing and we scratched our heads and said, "We don't know what this is."

So when I first came to the green, I was skeptical.

Who are these weirdos playing this sport dressed in white?

And now I'm one of the weirdos, and I love it.

I'm Ed's son.

And I'm Alex's father.

It's great to play as father and son.

When we went to the U.S.

Open, there were many older guys who said, "Man, I wish my son would bowl with me, too."

I joined the club about six and a half years ago now.

The club itself is a happy place for me.

Central Park was very familiar to us, but we had never ever seen the bowling green, and we were amazed.

My wife, she told me that we had just joined a lawn bowling club, and I had no idea what she was talking about, but that was okay.

- I was hooked.

I, you know, it just seemed like such a welcoming community on the one hand, and a really intriguing game on the other hand.

Surprisingly, thousands and thousands of people pass by us.

I don't think a fraction of them know what we're doing or what lawn bowling is.

The club itself, it's a piece of New York.

This sport has been here a very long time and not enough people know about it.

It's a very old game and it was brought here during the founding of New York City.

New York was founded as New Amsterdam by Peter Minuet in 1626.

Peter Minuet brought the Manhattan Island from the Lenape people for 60 guilders.

The tip of Manhattan was the origin of the city.

Everything happened here.

The British claimed they built the first green in 1664.

And they took over the city and named it New York.

Bowling Green Park is the oldest public park in the United States.

You know, a bowling green is an actual thing.

And it's one of those names that we don't think about until we think about it.

It was possibly the first official bowling green in America.

And it was built where the US Customs House sits today.

From the iconography of Manhattan Island, the first reference to the bowling green-- in 1733, the piece of land at the lower end of Broadway fronting the fort was leased to John Chambers, Peter Bayard, and Peter Jay for the purpose of enclosing it and making a bowling green at the yearly rent of one peppercorn.

One peppercorn.

Imagine that.

That's a nice price.

Imagine what they could have done with two peppercorns back in the day.

Isn't that interesting?

The next time you're in lower Manhattan stop by the bowling green.

There's a window depicting the game in lower Manhattan years ago.

Is it possible lawn bowling is the oldest sport in the United States?

Wow.

That'd be something.

If I were to think about how to describe the game of lawn bowling, the first thing I would say, it's not bocce.

Are you playing bocce?

If I had a nickel for every time I've been asked that, I'd be a very wealthy woman.

The game of lawn bowling, it starts with four of these.

This is what we call a bowl.

B-O-W-L-S.

And bowls are not balls.

They're shaped differently.

Is a miniature big fat truck tire.

It's got a rolling surface.

You've got a way to grip it on the side, and the proper technique is to get it rolling.

Looks round, but it's not quite round.

It's got a steel plate inside, so it's cut on a bias.

A ball doesn't go straight.

It actually curves a little bit.

Basically, it's a target game.

We throw out a target ball, which is called a jack, typically centered in the rink, which is the lane that you're playing.

Team that has the most balls closest to the jack gets the points.

It's a game you can play as a beginner with 30 seconds of introduction, but you could spend your whole life learning how to master it.

It really is just a sport of precision, not strength.

So on any given day, I can play a member that's been there for 25 years and give them a run for their money.

And then other times they can destroy me.

One thing I find interesting about the neophytes, newbies, is they'll see a target out on the green and they'll roll their ball at it and it will end up 10 or 15 feet off to one side or other.

If you just think of the game, there's the jack and there's the bowl.

And how could that be so difficult?

It's amazing.

When you're relaxed, and that's when you make your best shots.

When you're tight and anxious, the ball can go any place.

In 1770, the British erected a statue of George III down at the Bowling Green.

On 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read to General Washington's troops.

At City Hall, right near the Bowling Green.

New Yorkers came down Broadway to topple the statue of King George III.

That original fence that surrounded the park is still there.

The tops of the fence that depicted the royal symbol of a crown were sawed off and you can still see it with your own eyes.

After the Revolution, even though George Washington was a lawn bowler, lawn bowling kind of went into a hiatus.

Nobody wanted to be associated with anything British.

But the sport of lawn bowling returned to the United States a century after the American Revolution.

Hey, who doesn't like an unexpected comeback?

Person who's considered the father of lawn bowling in the United States was a businessman from New Jersey named Christian Schepflin.

He brought back the game in 1879 after a visit to Europe.

The game of bowling on the green or lawn bowls was published by James W. Greig in 1904.

This is from the book and these are Schepflin's own words.

He said, "And in 1878, when I paid a visit to Europe, crossing on the steamship Celtic, my friend Captain Gladel of that ship on our arrival at Birkenhead invited me to accompany him to his bowling green club.

Just six months later a bowling green at Schepflin's home was built in New Jersey.

And the seed was planted.

In 1926, 300 years after the first game was played in Lower Manhattan, the New York Lawn Bowling Club was born.

George Reid was the first president.

He was also chief of the Caledonian Club.

Many of the early members of that club were from Scotland, where the game has always been popular.

Article 8 of the Constitution.

The insignia of the club shall be a circular buckled garter with the following inscription.

The New York Lawn Bowling Club, with the profile of a bowler in action.

The official colors of the club shall be blue, white, orange.

Identical colors as the flag of New York.

I'm past president of the club and I had a situation where somebody actually found in their attic a poem that was written in the 1930s about our club.

The poem speaks to the founders of our club so it's really a keepsake, a beautiful keepsake for us to have.

It's unclear why, but all of the archival documentation of the early history of the New York Lone Bullying Club could fit into a single bag.

Actually, this is the bag that contains the documents.

It's not much for a club that's been around for 100 years.

What do we find inside?

Letters to the bowlers, lists with payments, membership newsletters-- lots of them-- annual meeting minutes, copies of our Constitution, a little book about our club, letters inviting people to play on the green.

Catherine Hepburn, for example.

Or Lady Diana, Princess of Wales, right?

She was unable to come, but you know, nevertheless.

But hey, Hugh Jackman came to bowl with us.

Come on.

One of our favorite things in the archive is a note from former New York mayor, get this, Ed Koch.

How am I doing?

In a paper from the House of Representatives, Kotch writes, I think the enclosed may interest you.

Does anyone know what he's talking about?

No.

I have no idea what this is about.

No.

Maybe the, how am I doing, mayor, knew something that could have made the New York Lawn Bowling Club the most chic, the coolest club in New York.

Imagine lawn bowling competing with baseball or basketball.

Oh wow, of course.

Football or... Good?

Can you imagine a TV spot for the World Series of Bowling?

Really?

And now, the Super Bowl Lawn Bowl Weekend!

It'll be cool to see that.

Check this out.

In 1926, the new popularity of the game in New York City led Central Park to create two bowling greens.

The bowling greens were established at 69th Street, north of Sheep Meadow, where the Mineral Springs used to be.

The Central Park Conservancy owns the green.

There's something about the New York green that's very New York.

There's something rough about it.

There's something tough about it.

We're always talking about, "Oh, that green, it's such a mess."

The greens are approaching 100 years old, and they are not up to standards our sport requires.

The playability of our green, it's a work in progress.

The greens, while they're beautiful, they don't play the way an optimal game of long balls is supposed to be played.

You have to figure out the bumps and the angles.

If we had a good green, there'd be a lot more people using it.

There's so much potential for this little space.

But I have to say, I have to say, having seen other greens, their greens are much better.

The condition of the greens, but none of them have the views and the vistas of Central Park.

It's still special.

If Central Park is an oasis within New York City, then the lawn bowling green is an oasis within that oasis.

It's such a beautiful place.

The nearest bowling club is in New Jersey that exists today.

There used to be many more bowling clubs years ago, but a lot of them have disappeared.

That's right, Ed.

Brooklyn, Essex County, Mount Claire, West Hudson, Plainfield.

In the 1920s and '30s, lawn bowling results used to appear in the newspapers.

But after the Second World War, the importance of the game in the club diminished.

Until 1987, it was never more than 100 members.

After 2000, we started taking off.

And right now, we number around 140 people.

If you wander through the park and see us, like, we're there, we help make things interesting.

We're all dressed in white, so we become attractive to people to stop by.

Pedicab drivers, and so telling their passengers that it's a very exclusive club and it costs thousands and thousands to join.

And sometimes I correct them and sometimes I just leave it.

So the annual membership is about $100 and there's no other requirement.

That's peanuts.

(birds chirping) - As we grew older and older, there wasn't much to do in Cendra Park.

- It's one of the few things that seniors can enjoy in the park.

- Am I allowed to swear?

'Cause I'm gonna do it.

(laughs) I am constantly around people who are like twice my age, who are beating my ass whenever I play, and that gives me something to aspire to.

- As well as handicapped people, we have several members that are handicapped and still enjoy lawn bowling.

- I played with someone who's going in for a knee surgery, and he made it to the finals of our club championship, and he's going in for two knee surgeries.

This is a young people's game.

The younger you start, the longer you can play.

Anybody can do it, even young kids can do it.

People come from all walks of life.

We're all quirky and interesting New Yorkers, otherwise we wouldn't have self-selected to be part of this group.

The best shot I ever rolled would be my last bowl, last August, in Scotland, against their top bowler, with a cocktail in hand.

(laughs) When the bowl moves beautifully off your hand, you know right away, "Oh, that's good."

The bowl gets slower and slower and you know it's going to be good and it comes in.

That's the reason I really love the game.

When the bowl does what you want it to do, there's no better feeling than that.

The sweetness of the game, when you make a perfect shot, it is marvelous.

And a resounding knock against another bowl that gets it out of the way.

The thing about lawn bowling is you can be the best bowler on any given day.

And there are days in this club that I am the best bowler.

Out on the green, your politics, your religion, you're a wife beater doesn't really bother me as long as we play the game.

You know, I'd rather you weren't a wife beater.

I have never seen a club member kick a puppy.

I know, I know your wife.

You've been married a very long time.

You learn from everyone you play with, which is why you have to keep playing and you have to play with people who you think are better than you.

Ed Laist, stately gentleman, he would tell me as I first joined the club, just go low and slow.

And I'm still trying to get that.

A lot of our tournaments are named after people who used to be members of the club.

People live on through this game.

It's another way that community works by handing things down.

Our end of season tournament is named after Don Kingman, one of the presidents of the Lawn Bowling Club.

Don taught me to bowl.

Whether he was playing with you or against you, he educated you all the time.

Don was bowling left-handed.

He had been a right-handed bowler, but had a serious injury and was forced to bowl left-handed.

And he was better than just about anyone around, bowling with his non-dominant side.

I braced myself for getting the look if I didn't do what he wanted.

But you always played better, you upped your game.

I never lost.

Never lost one game with Don.

I've lost many games, but I've never lost one game with Don because he would not let me lose.

Don Kingman was a passionate bowler and was an active promoter of the New York Lawn Bowling Club.

He contacted President George Bush and gave him an honorary membership to the club, a set of bowls, and challenged him to a game on the White House lawn.

The president didn't dare to accept the challenge, just saying.

One very important moment in the history of our club took place on March 10, 1989.

And I was there.

New York City celebrated the anniversary of Bowling Green Park, and the game of lawn bowling was played once again in Lower Manhattan.

Members of the club and representatives from City Hall rolled bowls at the same spot Peter Minuet or George Washington bowled years before.

A City Council resolution recognized the great historical significance of the New York Lawn Bowling Club for the city.

Not bad, right?

Hey, we even have an official day for the New York Lawn Bowling Club.

New York is always changing.

And to find something like the New York Lawn Bowling Club that has had such consistency, that has been here for so long is very rare.

I'm a native New Yorker and it's a real New York Manhattan slice of the city full of all the great characters that make the city great.

If you're gonna play you're gonna meet so many people who are not like you in any way and that's what New York is supposed to be.

It's supposed to be a bunch of different people from a bunch of different backgrounds thrown together and making things work.

I think it's easy to believe that it's just 10 million strangers you know walking around in their in their little narrow path but my experience with New York and the Lawn Bowling Club is that there are these pockets where people do invest in each other as neighbors.

I think we should not call it a club we should just emphasize it's a community.

One of the reasons I joined the club was to make new friends in the New York City.

That's a big part of my life now.

Friendships are hard to come by in New York.

You know, they fly by, they come, they're in five minutes and out they go.

Our best friends are people who are bowlers.

It's a nice bubble from the rest of New York where things might feel a little frosty.

So many of my interactions in the rest of New York City was about your pedigree, where you went to school and what kind of job do you have and what degrees do you hold.

And so it was really refreshing as I got to know the Lawn Bowling Club members that when I showed up here at the Green, the conversations were not at all about that.

It was about just connecting as people.

My lawn bowling community goes beyond the lawn bowling green.

And I will tell you that it really got me through my journey, battling breast cancer twice.

It was one of the sports that I could do through my chemotherapy, through my radiation.

It was pivotal for me to overcome my cancer being part of New York City Lawn Bowling Club.

It really was.

Now, I don't know how that comes together.

I don't know why lawn bowling creates that.

It's just a mutual support.

Just wonderful.

- I think the New York Lawn Bowling Club community is a very special family with ups and downs and support like many, many families.

- One of my favorite things is our annual Christmas party.

We come together for an ugly sweater Christmas party.

And it's quite fun, something we look forward to every year outside of the lawn bowling.

- It's been rewarding in many, many ways.

- I could see myself bowling forever.

And I plan to.

Now, how long, however, is, I'm going to grab what I can.

I'll just bowl when I can.

- Personal situation over the past 21 years is there have always been changes.

And lawn bowling has been a constant, no matter what, a wonderful, constant joy in our lives.

For me, and I would say the same for Joe, it's changed our lives, finding along bowls.

One of my favorite memories is when Joe and I got married on the green.

And they created this wedding committee.

We had two rings set up, and people were actually rolling bowls.

And then we took time and had the wedding, and it was a great event.

- That's an image I always get, yeah.

And walking in, looking at everybody on their picnic blankets.

It was absolutely beautiful.

>> I think we evolved from a clan.

And the more clans you can be a part of, the better your life's gonna be.

So I got my lawn bowling clan, I got my clarinet and concert band clan, and my family clan.

So I'm set.

I'm 85.

I can touch my toes, and I can certainly bowl low and slow.

I'm going to be bowling for the rest of my life.

Lawn bowling has taught me to hang in there, hang in there until the very end.

Because you never know until the last bowl's rolled who's going to win.

And I'm serious about that.

Whatever the situation may be on this particular shot, all you have to do is bowl this bowl with your best delivery.

And that's all you can do.

If we win or we don't win, that's really not the most important thing.

The important thing is you have to really try.

And it's not over until the very last bowl.

I mean, I've seen miracles.

It's true.

Can I give you a hug?

Yeah, you can.

Because it's true, right?

Got to hang in there to the last bull's roll, seriously.

There's something that keeps coming back over and over to my head, the Ed Koch note.

Maybe this is it.

Maybe this club enclosed in this fence is what Koch was referring to in that note.

Maybe these simple stories about common people are what makes New York City the place it is.

Who knows?

Maybe this is it.

An ode to ye game of bowls.

A night in rambling through Central Park one beautiful summer day came upon some lawn bowlers at play.

He paused to observe and this is what he heard.

Just a draw Jimmy.

Now Pete for a drive.

Oh boy what a whack.

Jock play the dinky and lay it on the jack.

Fire shouted one voice and then all yelled burnt end.

Then for the fire department was suggested they should send.

And there was really no smoke.

In fact, all that happened was the bulls got a poke.

There was talk of a toucher, ditcher, wrong bias in the mat.

And heavy artillery went through the hoose, whatever's that.

They say many were weak and some were too strong, others too narrow or too wide.

All seemed wrong.

One shouted the shot, the other said they lie.

This remark did not cause a fight, but one wonders why.

The players who are called the Skips had the most to say.

While the others followed orders in a military way.

One Skip named Bob said, Larry is an armchair to rest on.

A Skip named George said, Andy come through this lovely port.

But there was no chair on the lot or water of any sort.

Another Skip named Bill yells, aye Mac, you surely did paint the lily.

But no lily could be seen, neither was any paint.

My word exclaimed the knight, here's a game that is but ain't.

So his highness joined the club, polished his bowls.

The game reduced his tummy and increased his chest.

And now he's feeling just about at his best.

Daniel C. Whearty, who died November 28, 1930.

The poem was written on October 13, 1930.

That's amazing.

I participated in something that's going to be 100.

[laughs] Do you think it's going to continue?

I certainly hope so.

It would be really criminal, almost, for other people not to have the opportunity to experience this.

The New York Lawn Bowling Club and the folks who keep it alive are good stories, worthy to be shared.

So, keep this in mind the next time you visit Central Park.

Don't be shy.

Call out over the fence.

Say, "Hi."

You'll soon find yourself with a bowl in your hand, as we've been doing since Peter Minuet.