This color photograph was taken right around the time that "The Hustler" was filming.
Ames Billiards
- Thread starter RickLafayette
- Start date
This color photograph was taken right around the time that "The Hustler" was filming.
Here’s an interesting article about Ames I just found. It also has a few words from the owner, Mr Ames himself.
F.Y.I. (Published 2004)
FYI column answers questions on whether pool scenes in movie The Hustler were shot in New York, on Revolutionary War-era politicain John Watts' gravestone in Trinity Church graveyard and whether New York was pioneer in day care movement; drawing (M)
www.nytimes.com
Last edited:
Paywalls suck!!!!!!Here’s an interesting article about Aimes I just found. It also has a few words from the owner, Mr Aimes himself.
F.Y.I. (Published 2004)
FYI column answers questions on whether pool scenes in movie The Hustler were shot in New York, on Revolutionary War-era politicain John Watts' gravestone in Trinity Church graveyard and whether New York was pioneer in day care movement; drawing (M)www.nytimes.com
The Hustler: Chalk Up Some Classic Movie Memorabilia | Antiques & Auction News
In 1961, Robert Rossens The Hustler hit movie theaters like an earsplitting sledgehammer break in the opening sequence of a pool gam
A damn. I didn't realize it was when I was reading, otherwise I would have cut and pasted it here. I just tried to click on it again, and now it paywalled me. If anyone can click successfully and cut and paste it here, its a good read.Paywalls suck!!!!!!
BTW, was Oakland California a good area in Fast Eddie's day? I was just watching a youtube blurb today and coincidentally it showed Oakland and basically said it was a dumpster.
I played at a joint calls Chino’s there in 86 or 87. Mark Haddad stepped up and diffused a bad situation and saved my ass one night. It was a bad move in my part to go there. Mark is a great guy, last I heard he is in Denver.
My mom told me when they moved to Ca in the early 50’s Oakland was great, by the 60’s game over. Oakland Hills is a affluent part of Oakland that is pretty nice but along the water front not so good-unless things changed in the last 20-25 years-possible.
Best
Fatboy
L.S. Dennis
Well-known member
I wouldn’t be walkin anywhere around west Oakland by night, or by day for that matter. Rough area to be sure.,,
Those are World War 2 type avatar goggles, he has a jacket pool or use to fly with before pressuring & temperature controlled cock pits.
Smoke is coming out of Camels sign puff at time to hook you into smoking.
There you go. When I spent time in New York in the 1960's there were lots of poolrooms all over Manhattan. Most of them had some good action. One of the exceptions was Ames. I went in there once or twice and there were only a few old men banging around the balls playing Straight Pool. Never went back again.
When I was young there was Pool ROOM downtown Far Rockaway, that is in Queens NYC, on main drag. Forget name but I use to go watch players. Early 60’s.
F.Y.I.
By Michael Pollak
May 2, 2004
Typecast as a Pool Hall
Q. Didn't they shoot the pool scenes in ''The Hustler'' somewhere in New York?
A. Indeed they did. The classic 1961 pool movie, starring Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson and Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats, used the Ames Billiard Academy in Times Square, a second-floor loft at 160 West 44th Street, at Seventh Avenue, for its on-location pool hall.
Just off camera during the weeks of shooting was Willie Mosconi, then the national pocket billiards champion, who shot for Newman in the close-ups (Gleason, a hustler himself, did his own shooting). Mosconi also had to set up shots easy enough for the actors to polish off when the scene called for it.
The pool hall was deliberately dirtied up to help underscore the film's seedy mood, with a cracked-paint job, knee-high spittoons and a faded poster reading ''Please do not spit on the floor.'' In fact, the real Ames played host to the New York State three-cushion championships in the 60's. (For some players, three-cushion is to pocket billiards as Dom Perignon is to Night Train.)
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Continue reading the main story
New York added real larceny to the local color during the shooting: two municipal electrical inspectors were arrested and charged with trying to shake down 20th Century Fox to overlook any electrical violations on the set.
Changing pastimes and the decline of Times Square took its toll on Ames. ''The place later became a hangout for those just kicked out of the movie houses at 4 in the morning,'' the owner, Abe Ames, said in July 1966, when the poolroom closed its doors. Furthermore, all the hustlers were playing elsewhere in big-money tournaments, thanks in part to the success of the movie that Ames helped bring to life.
A high-rise tower occupies that block, and the poolroom's corner now houses the studio for the ABC show ''Good Morning America.''
And here's a piece of trivia for would-be hustlers: The film's working title during the New York shooting was ''Sin of Angels.''
By Michael Pollak
May 2, 2004
Typecast as a Pool Hall
Q. Didn't they shoot the pool scenes in ''The Hustler'' somewhere in New York?
A. Indeed they did. The classic 1961 pool movie, starring Paul Newman as Fast Eddie Felson and Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats, used the Ames Billiard Academy in Times Square, a second-floor loft at 160 West 44th Street, at Seventh Avenue, for its on-location pool hall.
Just off camera during the weeks of shooting was Willie Mosconi, then the national pocket billiards champion, who shot for Newman in the close-ups (Gleason, a hustler himself, did his own shooting). Mosconi also had to set up shots easy enough for the actors to polish off when the scene called for it.
The pool hall was deliberately dirtied up to help underscore the film's seedy mood, with a cracked-paint job, knee-high spittoons and a faded poster reading ''Please do not spit on the floor.'' In fact, the real Ames played host to the New York State three-cushion championships in the 60's. (For some players, three-cushion is to pocket billiards as Dom Perignon is to Night Train.)
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading the main story
New York added real larceny to the local color during the shooting: two municipal electrical inspectors were arrested and charged with trying to shake down 20th Century Fox to overlook any electrical violations on the set.
Changing pastimes and the decline of Times Square took its toll on Ames. ''The place later became a hangout for those just kicked out of the movie houses at 4 in the morning,'' the owner, Abe Ames, said in July 1966, when the poolroom closed its doors. Furthermore, all the hustlers were playing elsewhere in big-money tournaments, thanks in part to the success of the movie that Ames helped bring to life.
A high-rise tower occupies that block, and the poolroom's corner now houses the studio for the ABC show ''Good Morning America.''
And here's a piece of trivia for would-be hustlers: The film's working title during the New York shooting was ''Sin of Angels.''
Apparently they make the guy look cool.Those are World War 2 type avatar goggles, he has a jacket pool or use to fly with before pressuring & temperature controlled cock pits.
Smoke is coming out of Camels sign puff at time to hook you into smoking.
Ames had a lot of action……big cash back at that time……$20 races were common and in the mid 60’s,
that was a lot of money and $100 sets were played with the big boys. That was more than most people’s
weekly paycheck back then. The action was there most of the time but it became active after 10 pm. We’d
go there on a Saturday afternoon around 4 pm and play until 8 or 9 pm. Then we’d watch the cash games.
that was a lot of money and $100 sets were played with the big boys. That was more than most people’s
weekly paycheck back then. The action was there most of the time but it became active after 10 pm. We’d
go there on a Saturday afternoon around 4 pm and play until 8 or 9 pm. Then we’d watch the cash games.
Motion in sigh make you look more, old advertising gimmick.
I haven't posted anything here for three or four years, but the different views of Jay Helfert, for whom I have much respect, and "Bavafongoul," whom I do not know, prompt me to reach into my memory bank. I can only tell you what I saw in Ames.
In September or October of 1965 I was a new graduate student at a school in New Jersey. Over dinner one evening an Indian student who enjoyed billiards mentioned to me that the pool room where "The Hustler" had been filmed was in NYC, only about an hour from where we were sitting by bus. We decided that when we had finished dinner we would board the bus and ride into the city. I had never been anywhere outside the Midwest. I still remember when the bus turned a corner in New Jersey and suddenly all of lighted Manhattan appeared before me. I will never forget the image. People on this forum may be able to identify what tunnel or turn or whatever it was that we came through or out of, but we had no preparation for what we saw, just all at once that spectacular vision.
At the Port Authority Terminal, I suppose we found a phone book and looked up Ames. I think we may have asked a policeman where Forty-Seven Street was. I mean, I represented the twenty-two-year-old experience of Cincinnati and my friend represented Bombay by way of London and the School of Economics there and probably thought, "Oh, look! A Bobbie. We can ask him where the pool room is.". All I can say is that I don't remember any rudeness or discourtesy from whomever it was we asked for directions.
Now, as green as I am about the Big City, I am not green about pool and billiards. Joey Spaeth, who was not an unkind man, once described me as "the kid with the million dollar stroke and the five-and-dime pair of eyes." I had seen Clem Metz in social interaction but never had seen him stroke a cue ball. (Look him up.) I had spent eight weeks one summer around Detroit Whitey when he had come to Cincinnati and had watched from a medium distance what that performance was like. I knew Tom Smith quite well. He was a Croatian gentleman who was what we would now call a "pool detective." He is immortalized in Walter Tevis's "The Hustler" in the scene after Fast Eddie has his thumbs broken and they heal. Eddie goes looking for someone who can play well so that he, Eddie, can see if he can potentially still play pool against a skilled player. The scene is in the novel but not in the movie. Tevis would have known Tom. So, when my friend and I found Ames and went upstairs, I knew what we were looking at from the billiards aspect.
The room was not a dump, but it was completely dark except for one billiard table. On two sides of that table were risers with people sitting on them. I would say that there were about forty gentlemen occupying those risers. There was no light on anywhere in the room except for that one billiard table. There were no other people in the room playing. The match was three-cushion billiards in sets of fifteen or twenty points. The contestants were as different from one another as could be. The one was a young man, in his early twenties, dressed in presentable golf clothes: slacks and a dark red Lacoste golf shirt. Younger people will have to understand that in those days, before the "Sixties," people showed self-respect in the way they presented themselves. He was very handsome. I learned later that his name was...well, I'll do the eighteenth century thing and give a false name with the same number of syllables. Let's say his name was "Jimmy Carruthers." That will be the same number of syllables for each name and the same pattern of accented syllables. I learned fifty-five years later that he is still alive and in Florida. His opponent was a man in his sixties. He was in businessman slacks and a dress shirt that was dazzlingly white --and so heavily starched and stiff-looking that you felt that you could hear it crackle when he stroked.
This little scene that my friend and I had walked in on lasted about three hours. During that time no one spoke above a whisper, and then only when one game had ended and another was about to begin. There was no interaction among the spectators during games. When a game came to an end, whichever player was to break in the next would go the head of the table and stand there waiting. On the risers during that interval a few people would move about and speak very quietly to one another. Sometimes you would see an envelope change hands. After a few moments of this activity, the player about to break would look around the risers at a few people . When he had received whatever nods or whatever signs he was looking for, he would bend over and play the break shot.
After three hours this all broke up. Everyone rose from the risers and started to talk to one another. Apparently they all knew one another, which one might not have guessed from the formality during the match.
I will leave you to judge whether there was any action at Ames.
In September or October of 1965 I was a new graduate student at a school in New Jersey. Over dinner one evening an Indian student who enjoyed billiards mentioned to me that the pool room where "The Hustler" had been filmed was in NYC, only about an hour from where we were sitting by bus. We decided that when we had finished dinner we would board the bus and ride into the city. I had never been anywhere outside the Midwest. I still remember when the bus turned a corner in New Jersey and suddenly all of lighted Manhattan appeared before me. I will never forget the image. People on this forum may be able to identify what tunnel or turn or whatever it was that we came through or out of, but we had no preparation for what we saw, just all at once that spectacular vision.
At the Port Authority Terminal, I suppose we found a phone book and looked up Ames. I think we may have asked a policeman where Forty-Seven Street was. I mean, I represented the twenty-two-year-old experience of Cincinnati and my friend represented Bombay by way of London and the School of Economics there and probably thought, "Oh, look! A Bobbie. We can ask him where the pool room is.". All I can say is that I don't remember any rudeness or discourtesy from whomever it was we asked for directions.
Now, as green as I am about the Big City, I am not green about pool and billiards. Joey Spaeth, who was not an unkind man, once described me as "the kid with the million dollar stroke and the five-and-dime pair of eyes." I had seen Clem Metz in social interaction but never had seen him stroke a cue ball. (Look him up.) I had spent eight weeks one summer around Detroit Whitey when he had come to Cincinnati and had watched from a medium distance what that performance was like. I knew Tom Smith quite well. He was a Croatian gentleman who was what we would now call a "pool detective." He is immortalized in Walter Tevis's "The Hustler" in the scene after Fast Eddie has his thumbs broken and they heal. Eddie goes looking for someone who can play well so that he, Eddie, can see if he can potentially still play pool against a skilled player. The scene is in the novel but not in the movie. Tevis would have known Tom. So, when my friend and I found Ames and went upstairs, I knew what we were looking at from the billiards aspect.
The room was not a dump, but it was completely dark except for one billiard table. On two sides of that table were risers with people sitting on them. I would say that there were about forty gentlemen occupying those risers. There was no light on anywhere in the room except for that one billiard table. There were no other people in the room playing. The match was three-cushion billiards in sets of fifteen or twenty points. The contestants were as different from one another as could be. The one was a young man, in his early twenties, dressed in presentable golf clothes: slacks and a dark red Lacoste golf shirt. Younger people will have to understand that in those days, before the "Sixties," people showed self-respect in the way they presented themselves. He was very handsome. I learned later that his name was...well, I'll do the eighteenth century thing and give a false name with the same number of syllables. Let's say his name was "Jimmy Carruthers." That will be the same number of syllables for each name and the same pattern of accented syllables. I learned fifty-five years later that he is still alive and in Florida. His opponent was a man in his sixties. He was in businessman slacks and a dress shirt that was dazzlingly white --and so heavily starched and stiff-looking that you felt that you could hear it crackle when he stroked.
This little scene that my friend and I had walked in on lasted about three hours. During that time no one spoke above a whisper, and then only when one game had ended and another was about to begin. There was no interaction among the spectators during games. When a game came to an end, whichever player was to break in the next would go the head of the table and stand there waiting. On the risers during that interval a few people would move about and speak very quietly to one another. Sometimes you would see an envelope change hands. After a few moments of this activity, the player about to break would look around the risers at a few people . When he had received whatever nods or whatever signs he was looking for, he would bend over and play the break shot.
After three hours this all broke up. Everyone rose from the risers and started to talk to one another. Apparently they all knew one another, which one might not have guessed from the formality during the match.
I will leave you to judge whether there was any action at Ames.