An Idea that actually did work.

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middleofnowhere

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Maybe pool rooms didn't really look like this in the 60s but it is close. I played in Brunswick bowling alleys that had beautiful pool rooms. They tried to differentate themselves from what was perceived as the smoke filled pool rooms of the past, to a wholesome activity for the whole family. And it worked for many years. The big difference to today was, it was done on a corporate level with a goal in mind. Big money was in back of it.

Before I transitioned to real more hardcore poolrooms, I grew up playing in places exactly like that. With the demise of the family oriented pool rooms, I don't know where I could take a kid today to introduce them to the game. Maybe a bar that allows minors. Pool seems to have come full circle. Back to where it started, struggling to be accepted. What took place back in the 50's and 60's I doubt can be repeated. It happened briefly after COM, but quickly fizzled.

 
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I like the blonde woman in the orange blouse.
At 4:19 Mosconi shows up.
All the the people in the video were white and real clean cut.
 
That commercial is convincing me the best way to enjoy pool is from the privacy of my own home.

Nobody talked to anyone else.
 
I started playing in a bowling alley also. Well maintained equipment at 60 cents an hour. This would have been the early 70s in the Mansfield Ohio area. Good times !
 
Where i used to live, most of the pool halls are franchises. They're all street level. Well lit. Have darts, ping pong. They attract mostly the social players, but some are hotbeds for the better players. Every table in play on weekend evenings. League nights have every table in play.

I do remember when pool halls were always in basements, or upper floors, and dimly lit.
 
This video gets posted every so often here.

It’s a slice of good ol’ Americana.

I think it would have benefited from a little more scoring or musical accompaniment.
 
The thing pool has back then as it doesn't have now, is
Danimal said:
This video gets posted every so often here.

It’s a slice of good ol’ Americana.

I think it would have benefited from a little more scoring or musical accompaniment.
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Somewhere there is a long version that was produced for people to invest in a poolroom business. I could not find it but it is on YouTube.
 
I began playing at the age of 14 in 1966. Nicks Pool Room in Gloucester, Mass, Hippie Jimmy Reid learned to play there a couple years before me. There was a shoe shine parlor at the front and a second door led to the pool room. An old oak floor, one rest room, no girls allowed and filled with smoke. All the tables had cigarette burns on the rails. Table time was $.60 an hour and you had to yell to Nick to rack your balls for you. Nick Denikas was the owner and his son Artie took it over after he retired. The Denikas family were a wonderful group Artie was like a father to half the kids in Gloucester. On weekend mornings we would all line up waiting for him to come and open up, we could not get in the door fast enough. I saw Artie and his wife about four years ago on a trip home. We chatted for hours about the pool room and pool in general. He was thrilled that I had kept playing and still had a passion for the game. He passed away two years ago, I miss that man even now.....
 
I don’t miss those Brunswick rooms at all.....people making decisions that didn’t understand the game.
Brunswick recommended lighting was fluorescent tubes all over the ceiling....giving it the atmosphere
of somewhere between a gym and a men’s washroom.
...and too many tables for the space...well, yeah, they were moving tables, right?
What got me hooked to the game was each table had its own light source...when you played, you were in your
own little world.
I wanted butter, Brunswick gave me margarine
 
I used to bowl at a place called Sheraton Bowl in Mineola NY some fifty years ago and remember they had such a setup. As I had a pool table at home, I never actually played pool on one of those Brunswick tables, but the thing I remember most is that they all had red felt.
 
pt109 said:
I don’t miss those Brunswick rooms at all.....people making decisions that didn’t understand the game.
Brunswick recommended lighting was fluorescent tubes all over the ceiling....giving it the atmosphere
of somewhere between a gym and a men’s washroom.
...and too many tables for the space...well, yeah, they were moving tables, right?
What got me hooked to the game was each table had its own light source...when you played, you were in your
own little world.
I wanted butter, Brunswick gave me margarine
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Your right, they weren't pool rooms but rooms with pool tables. You are right about the lighting. It was just cealing fixtures like you find in any store. There was no real atmosphere.

It is impossible though to discount what they did to further the sport. The thing that made them work so well was that they were attached to an already existing popular draw, bowling. The bowling provided a steady flow of customers for the billiard area.

Not like a stand alone pool room on the side of the road waiting for a customer to walk in the door.

Those bowling alley pool rooms, you would not in the least feel funny taking a date there for a night of bowling and pool. They had everything. Bowling, pool, pinball machines, restaurant, bar. It was a night out under one roof, and pool was a big big beneficiary of it's concept.
Nothing like that exists today.

And then you had players like Mosconi, Caras, Balsis showing up two or three times a year doing exhibitions. I played Mosconi when I was only 16. He beat me 150 to 44. It was good times for pool.
 
I used to meet my girl friend at a Brunswick Bowling Alley with Pool Tables like that. Lots of good memories there.

People still want to get together and do things but covid is cramping all of that and from the looks of things that
won't let up for a long time to come.
 
The nicest rooms in Phila were the Cue & Cushion. They were Brunswick rooms with White GC's/Gold cloth-corner ash trays. You could take your family/friends and have a great time. 21 tables. Sometimes the place was packed and you sat and waited. Missed is Sat afternoon Odd Ball($.25 a way) or dollar a game One Ball ...Coke and crackers for lunch. It was a great/safe introduction to playing pool.
 
GoldCrown said:
The nicest rooms in Phila were the Cue & Cushion. They were Brunswick rooms with White GC's/Gold cloth-corner ash trays. You could take your family/friends and have a great time. 21 tables. Sometimes the place was packed and you sat and waited. Missed is Sat afternoon Odd Ball($.25 a way) or dollar a game One Ball ...Coke and crackers for lunch. It was a great/safe introduction to playing pool.
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I think in NC "Odd Ball" is called "Ways" I wonder if that game is in the rule book?
 
I grew up in a room much like the one in the video. Big, BRIGHT, room full of tan covered GC1's. This was the post-'The Hustler' Brunswick backed good times. Might as well be on a different planet now.
 
sjm said:
I used to bowl at a place called Sheraton Bowl in Mineola NY some fifty years ago and remember they had such a setup. As I had a pool table at home, I never actually played pool on one of those Brunswick tables, but the thing I remember most is that they all had red felt.
Click to expand...
I remember it well and grew up bowling there 50+ years ago. I've been wracking my brain trying to recall the name of the pool hall on Jericho Turnpike between Mineola Blvd. and Willis Ave. in Mineola. I spent much time there before I went away to far away places. A guy named Izzy ran the place and I used to clean tables for time. Do you happen to recall the name?
 
MurrayNevada said:
I remember it well and grew up bowling there 50+ years ago. I've been wracking my brain trying to recall the name of the pool hall on Jericho Turnpike between Mineola Blvd. and Willis Ave. in Mineola. I spent much time there before I went away to far away places. A guy named Izzy ran the place and I used to clean tables for time. Do you happen to recall the name?
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What that's a toughie, but was it Herrill Lanes?
 
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