Anotherone bites the dust:.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-yor...0191105-wylp6ywulbaanpymykq5ipkraa-story.html
Lou Figueroa
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-yor...0191105-wylp6ywulbaanpymykq5ipkraa-story.html
Lou Figueroa
I have a question: why did they stay in the same spot so long knowing that flooding was/is/will be a major issue? I hate to see a room close but it looks like they just tempted fate too many times.Anotherone bites the dust:.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-yor...0191105-wylp6ywulbaanpymykq5ipkraa-story.html
Lou Figueroa
I have a question: why did they stay in the same spot so long knowing that flooding was/is/will be a major issue? I hate to see a room close but it looks like they just tempted fate too many times.
I’m going to miss Hippos...had some good times there.
And I was a frequent visitor to Al Conte’s shop...he did me a bunch of favors...
..I found him an unbelievably cheap GC 6x12...he needed it for the Rolling Stones.
Hippo’s grandkid, Victor, was very nice to me also.
...my Szamboti was in a picture at the main entrance.
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Al was was a bear of a man...fortunately, he loved people.
I have a question: why did they stay in the same spot so long knowing that flooding was/is/will be a major issue? I hate to see a room close but it looks like they just tempted fate too many times.
Thanks. I wish them well. My state(Okla) gets a lot of flooding and it is brutal.That storm was tremendous. Other areas in Utica flooded. That said the development of land above his location was a huge contributor, replacing farmland that absorbs rain vesus buildings and pavement that don't. The needed drainage improvements were not undertaken because local and state government did not step up. The Department of Environmental Conservation cares more about a few trout in the stream than this 30 year business. They own everything there...hard to just pick up and move.
Victor had reopened 5 months back after a competing room opened a year back. His manager who leased his location had opened a new spot with several months remaining on rights to his room. So after much thought he did reopen and now mother nature dealt his family a tough hand.
He may reopen in some capacity in a new spot, but he is done there.
Al Conte was a great man and maybe the best table mechanic I ever met. He set up the tables for just about every pro tournament sponsored by Brunswick and they played perfectly!