Steve Zahler closed Modern Pinball in Manhattan after the Covid-19 pandemic proved too big an obstacle for a business that was mainly a labor of love.
Photo: Charles Passy/The Wall Street JournalWhen Steve Zahler decided a few weeks ago to permanently close Modern Pinball, the arcade in Manhattan’s Kips Bay neighborhood that he had owned and run for nearly the past seven years, it seemed like another woeful tale of a business that failed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
But this story has a twist: Modern Pinball has found a second life, with many of its 25-plus machines now housed in the basements, living rooms and other spare spaces of its most loyal customers.
Mr. Zahler decided to sell the games, priced anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000, to those who knew them best. It was partly a business decision, but it was also about something larger—a quest, if you will, to keep the silver ball in play.
“I knew how much this place meant to people,” said Mr. Zahler, a 51-year-old pinball ace who has ranked as high as 19th in the global rankings. (Yes, there are global pinball rankings, based on player performance in various competitive events.)
Members of Danielle Bonanno’s family play ‘Gorgar,’ formerly an attraction at Modern Pinball.
Photo: Danielle BonannoBut don’t take Mr. Zahler’s word for it. The players themselves will tell you.
“I would drive seven hours just to play there for three hours,” said Christopher Maniatis, a 40-year-old pinball fanatic who would make the trek a few times a year, often with family members in tow, from his home in Mattapoisett, Mass.
When Mr. Maniatis heard the store’s inventory was up for sale, he knew the machine he wanted: a 2008 game based on the “Shrek” animated-movie franchise. “That was the first one my daughter ever played,” he said.
Not that Mr. Maniatis exactly needed another machine, since he already has more than a half-dozen in his home. And given his collection, which has numbered as many as 30 machines at any given time, he admitted that he didn’t need to travel to New York City to play pinball.
But Modern was a mecca for pinball wizards. Mr. Zahler opened it in 2013, originally in partnership with Steve Epstein, a veteran champion of the game who died in June. Pinball was beginning to experience a resurgence in New York, a city where the game was once banned by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who saw it as a reckless pastime that took money from the “pockets of school children.”
Grade-school students from Brooklyn, N.Y., used the games at Modern Pinball in 2016 to learn about scientific principles.
Photo: Natalie Keyssar for The Wall Street JournalIn a sense, Mr. Zahler rode the bandwagon as the pinball renaissance spread throughout New York and the rest of the country, with leagues and competitions devoted to the game becoming highly popular. But Modern Pinball also spurred the boom, say players, in part because of its very focus.
Most pinball fans have to settle for playing in bars, where they might find a machine or two—and often those machines are in less-than-perfect playing condition, with flippers that don’t quite work or lights that have burned out. At Modern, players relished the assortment of machines, be it an old-school favorite such as the Elton John-themed “Capt. Fantastic” game from the 1970s or the newest offerings from Stern, a major pinball manufacturer.
The players appreciated that the machines were well-maintained—Mr. Zahler said he took it personally when he had to take a beloved game out of service even for a day or two when repairs were needed. And they could play in a place that didn’t smell of stale beer.
So they came and played. And played. And played.
A Modern Pinball regular, Danielle Bonanno, said the attraction of the game remains its physical and tactile essence—unlike, say, in a videogame, in which everything is essentially computerized. “You’re dealing with the forces of nature, with gravity, with metal and glass,” she said.
Jonathan Kui gives the Vulcan salute after purchasing a ‘Star Trek’ pinball machine.
Photo: Steve ZahlerMs. Bonanno, a 47-year-old Staten Island resident, is another player who purchased a machine from Modern when it closed. She acquired a 1979 game called “Gorgar,” which is noteworthy for being the first talking pinball machine, with the creature Gorgar uttering phrases.
While the machine showed signs of wear, that made it all the more appealing to Ms. Bonanno, who said she has no plans to restore it. “Why would I erase its history?” she explained.
For Esme Usdan, Modern Pinball was the place where her autistic son, Andrew Snyder, 24 years old, could escape for a few hours once a week and be wowed with the game in all its sensory wonder. She, too, felt compelled to purchase a machine, a fishing-themed one called Fish Tales.
The only challenge? Finding space for it in the cramped basement of her Westport, Conn., home. “It just fits,” she said.
As dedicated as Mr. Zahler’s customers were to Modern Pinball, the pandemic proved too big an obstacle for a business that was always more a labor of love than a financially lucrative enterprise. Mr. Zahler was forced to shut down the store in March and hoped to wait out the situation, but as weeks turned to months, he determined he was better off calling it quits.
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He hasn’t ruled out opening Modern Pinball at a new location one day. “I’m talking a Disney World of pinball,” he said.
For now, he is content that his machines are still being played. He said he took pains to make sure each game was in perfect working order and properly cleaned before it headed out the door. “You could eat off them,” he said.
Write to Charles Passy at cpassy@wsj.com
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/game-isnt-over-for-pinball-machines-after-new-york-arcade-closes-11596903301
2020-08-08 16:15:00Z
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