The good olde days

[tom haney]

Well, I just thought I'd post a thread reminiscing the good olde days in the pool rooms as I remember them. I guess I'm just really missing those times.

I can remember when poolrooms were open at 9am, there was always a rotation game going with players getting in and getting out. There were always a few good straight pool games going on. The rooms could be found in hotels, on second floors, there was even a basement bowling alley with manual reset pins with 2 5 x 10 tables. We would send a runner out for coffee and stay all day and all night.

There was never loud obscene music being played. No kids yelling out the "F" word every 2 seconds. No disrespect.

It was standard practice to pull up stools all around a good straight pool game that was about to start. Plenty of side action also.

It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Not like today. You wait for rooms to open at 5. Crazy mind shattering music (and I use the term music loosely) starts shortly there after and enjoying the game and immersing into it is no longer an option. A ton of video games in the background being sure you never concentrate even if the banging music stops for a second.

I do miss that olde atmosphere. Its a shame IMO the kids today may never be able to enjoy it as it was. Oh well, thats whats been on my mind about pool rooms. I'll bet there are still a few of these rooms hiding about somewhere ... I'd love to find one near enough to enjoy once again.

My favorite pool room back in the 60s was the Strand Pool Room
in Clarksburg, WV. Opened at 7 A.M.
Big bar on the right with coldest ,cheapest beer.
Restaurant on right with good, inexpensive food.
You go through open doorway. 12 regulation tables that started hopping
around 9 til about 1 in the afternoon.
Parleys out in the open. Wide open gambling. Machines all around the
tables that paid off but said"For amusement only".
Louie Parise ran the racehorse game.
Most played one pocket: Kenny " Sarge" Gorby, John " Geronimo" Brill,
Guy Buffy, Bill " Slim" Powel, "Billy Bones".
Big nine ball game going too.
One crowd played one and ten.
Mobsters, lawyers, bankers, jewelrers, glass factory workers, coal miners,
hustlers.
All 12 tables kicking with people waiting.
Pool room had been there for years. Charley Duvalier grew up
playing in there.
Lassiter played there, Fats, Mosconi.
Hustlers always passing throug: Old black dude with one eye called
" Deadeye", John Oakie from Philly, " Truck drivin" Ansel McCoy, Frank
Hawkinberry, Ollie Pittman, Eddie Robinson.
Stayed open til 11.
Barber shop in back.
A Greek guy,John Daffin, ran the pool room, Frankie Musci ran the
gambling, old black guy named "Boston" and old Italian fellow
named Charley took the bets.
Some old farmer, Charley Feoppel, and some hard drinking bricklayer
named "Nunie" Fragale would bet thousands playing one hole.
Neat place. Anybody ever there?

 

[gulfportdoc]

I used to drive the 10 miles or so from Monterey Park to play at 4th & Main or 5th & Spring

John, wasn't 4th & Main called Romey's (sp)? I only went there once or twice in the late 60's. I played only 3C then, and I ventured down there from Tiff Payne's up in N. Hollywood. I think Romey's had 4 billiard tables, but the equipment wasn't nearly as good as Tiff's. I didn't have the dough to gamble then, so I'd just play for the table time. Most of the good 3C players hung out at N. Hyd: Gilbert, Torres, etc.

Doc

 

[jrhendy]

Romy's in LA

John, wasn't 4th & Main called Romey's (sp)? I only went there once or twice in the late 60's. I played only 3C then, and I ventured down there from Tiff Payne's up in N. Hollywood. I think Romey's had 4 billiard tables, but the equipment wasn't nearly as good as Tiff's. I didn't have the dough to gamble then, so I'd just play for the table time. Most of the good 3C players hung out at N. Hyd: Gilbert, Torres, etc.

Doc

Yes it was Romy's & it was around long before Tiff Payne's. The old Brunswick 3 cushion tables were considered to be good ones at that time because they actually used to take them down and ship them to tournaments. Most of the billiard players moved on after Tiff's came along, but they always had their share of top 3 cushion players and many of the mexican pool players were very good billiard players. I also played a lot of billiards at San Gabriel Bowl in the early 60's but never played it good enough to beat the guys who would bet something and lost interest. John Henderson

 

[Frankenstroke]

Belmont Billiards in Dayton, Ohio has been in operation since maybe the
20's.

 

[jay helfert]

Jay, since you remember the Circus. I think it was in San Jose. Do you remember a young guy named Bobby. Liked to gamble a bit. He used to get the 7 from me. In the course of a week he and I played all around the bay area and I beat for about $5000. I think he was into some illegal activities and thats why he was always pumped with cash. After beating him for about a week we wound up at the Circus to play. He wanted to play for $10 a game and I refused to play because I thought he might be low on cash because we had played for most of the week. We normally started at $40 a game. When we didn't play, a fellow named Smiley from San Francisco asked him to play and I stood there and watched him Beat Bobby out of $1500. Goes to show you. Do you remember these guys?

Joe Smiley and Bob Morris. I think that was his last name.

 

[jay helfert]

Yes I know who Pepe's son is and he has responded to a few of my posts about Bellflower and I have responded to his. Looks like he has blossomed since going to Arizona. Not that he was a bad guy in Bellflower, but his temper hurt his game some as I recall. Pepe was one of the good guys to gamble with, but the last time I fooled with him he beat me for $1,200 playing $200 a game one pocket at the Golden Cue. John Henderson

Pepe used to run around with Baby Huey, and I was always messing with these two trying to beat them. I could beat Jerry sometimes, but I have yet to book a winner with Pepe. I gave up on him 25 years ago.

 

[jay helfert]

Jay, it sounds like you might have been there a time or two? As a matter of fact, a gun was the final straw that led me to quit going there. I was sweating a pool game with quite a crowd of other people. There was a young man just to my left who, perhaps as a result of too much alcohol, was making a lot of noise. Just to my right was a fellow named Billy T. Dyer, a tush hog of considerable repute. Billy T. told the young man to be quiet and when the young man said something like, "who you tellin' to be quiet!," Billy T. pulled back his jacket to reveal the handle of a pistol. I'm sitting between them thinking that the young kid surely will shut up, but he doesn't. The kid looks at Billy T. and says, "You ain't the only one with a gun!" And the kid whips out a Saturday night special and points it toward Billy T. In a flash, Billy T. grabs the kid's wrist and thrusts the kid's gun hand away from himself. The problem for me, at that point, is that the gun was now pointed squarely at my face with the kid's trembling finger on the trigger. I don't remember what happened next, but no shots were fired and no one was hurt. Right after that I concluded that Cotton Palace had become too dangerous for me.

I went in there two or three times, and got games. But I was never comfortable gambling in there, and I knew it to be a dangerous room. I played a guy they called "Chicken", and Puckett watched the game. U.J. warned me to be careful and to pay off every game. I won $50 or $60 and the guy quit. About three or four guys asked me to play after that.

I played an older fat guy some $20 One Pocket and he talked all the time when I was shooting, trying to shark me. I won two or three games and he got really nasty with me. So I went to the bathroom and hit the door, never to return. I saw U.J. in Vegas later and he asked me if I knew who I was playing. I said no, and he laughed. He said the fat guy was a "stone killer", his words. This was in 1970 or 71.

 

[MrLucky]

Sorry but...

I understand your point and your not alone. Everyone feels this way about something. I miss when my dad used to wrestle with me when I was a kid. People, places, and things change every day. Take some advise from a youngster and next time you walk into a pool room, turn the juke box up, find one of those kids that like to say F this and F that, grab a cue and play with them a while. It’s the same game it has been for years. Music’s different. People are different. The action is different, but it is still the same game you fell in love with back in the day.

The only reason I say this is because you seem a little bitter. No need to be bitter, especially about music or video games or kids that say F@#K. I'm sure if you look hard enough you will find what you have been missing...and maybe even find something you never had.

I remember the days back then well and these kids now that as you say talk loud and use the profanity are just one part of todays culture I for one can do without! They want to argue about every shot especially when they find out the "Ole" guy is waxing their butts and they want to fight about paying up ! Back when it was pretty much a gentleman's game! no loud talking around the tables ! people for the most part paid up either in goods or cash and I rarely saw a fight !

 

[freddy the beard]

Tommy the Greek

This really dates me but as a callous youth I went to the Follies (vaudville) at 6th and Main in LA and later got hustled by an "old man" in a truly classic downstairs poolroom at first and main. I thought I was cool coming from the "family billiards" rooms in the suburbs and almost felt sorry for the "old man" who wanted a friendly game. When I left I did not have enough money to get my car out of the parking lot.

You may have been playing Tommy the Greek. He hung out at 4th and Main in the 60's. A great unacknowledged player, when he was 69 yrs old he played Eddie Taylor to a 24hr draw playing even 1pkt for $100 a game at 4th and Main in the late 60s. He was originally from Chicago in the 30s, 40s. He was a top,top 1pkt player. When I asked him who he thought was the best 1pkt player (in 1968 or 69) he'd ever seen, he said his choice was a young up and comer, "Junior" he called him. Junior turned out to be Ronnie Allen. That Tommy picked him over all the great old-timers was very unusual.
He was always undercover. When I met him it was before he played Taylor, he had me feeling sorry for him, complaining about his bad heart etc., so I didnt ask him to play. I later found out he used the "bad heart" ploy as early as the 40s. As it turned out he was just laying a trap for me! He loved to bet horses too. Anybody with any further info on Tommy would be appreciated by me (real name, etc.).

Wasnt the Cotton Palace also known as the Cotton Bowl? I was never there. There were 2 places I crossed off in my road travels. The Cotton Palace/Bowl? was one, and the whole state of So. Carolina was another, and believe me, I would go to some very horrible joints. So. Carolina had 1 heist man per every pool hustler, and there were just too many stick-up, murderers in the Dallas Cotton Palace/Bowl?. Keep in mind, I traveled with one of the toughest son of a bit*h in the county, Sugar Shack Johnny Novak. He took no sh*t from anybody, and would not release the cash to a heist man. He would have surely gotten me killed.

the Beard

 

[MrLucky]

I guess I was fortunate ...

You may have been playing Tommy the Greek. He hung out at 4th and Main in the 60's. A great unacknowledged player, when he was 69 yrs old he played Eddie Taylor to a 24hr draw playing even 1pkt for $100 a game at 4th and Main in the late 60s. He was originally from Chicago in the 30s, 40s. He was a top,top 1pkt player. When I asked him who he thought was the best 1pkt player (in 1968 or 69) he'd ever seen, he said his choice was a young up and comer, "Junior" he called him. Junior turned out to be Ronnie Allen. That Tommy picked him over all the great old-timers was very unusual.
He was always undercover. When I met him it was before he played Taylor, he had me feeling sorry for him, complaining about his bad heart etc., so I didnt ask him to play. I later found out he used the "bad heart" ploy as early as the 40s. As it turned out he was just laying a trap for me! He loved to bet horses too. Anybody with any further info on Tommy would be appreciated by me (real name, etc.).

Wasnt the Cotton Palace also known as the Cotton Bowl? I was never there. There were 2 places I crossed off in my road travels. The Cotton Palace/Bowl? was one, and the whole state of So. Carolina was another, and believe me, I would go to some very horrible joints. So. Carolina had 1 heist man per every pool hustler, and there were just too many stick-up, murderers in the Dallas Cotton Palace/Bowl?. Keep in mind, I traveled with one of the toughest son of a bit*h in the county, Sugar Shack Johnny Novak. He took no sh*t from anybody, and would not release the cash to a heist man. He would have surely gotten me killed.

the Beard

I very rarely encountered those kinds of issues though I was mostly in and around New York and Brooklyn in those days and was usually with Cisero when I went in the dives! I knew and was around a lot of the hustlers then but most of the games I witnessed were semi LOL! friendly and folks paid off! But they also mostly all played in the same circles and no one wanted the rep of not paying their debts!

 

[gregoryg]

Antlers Hotel...

When I first started playing in poolrooms, the seediest place I ever saw, was the billiard room at the bottom level of the Antlers Hotel in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It looked like they used it for the set of "The Hustler", you needed a flashlight or a lighter if you stepped more that two feet from the table. Sadly they were bought out and torn down to make room for the mall that now stands in it's place. So much for progress, right?

 

[sde]

Is any one here old enough to remember rooms like this?


edited to include
Newsboy Club in Boston. October 1909.

Steve

 

[DaveK]

Interesting picture Steve. It looks like those lads were not old enough to get into a pool hall from that era. Notice too that there are no ladies present. Of course around here ladies and lads were not allowed into 'good old days' pool halls. Somehow I think this was also common throughout the States as well. Maybe that contributed to the 'good old days'

Dave, not around for gaslights

 

[BillPorter]

Cotton Bowling Palace

Wasnt the Cotton Palace also known as the Cotton Bowl? I was never there. There were 2 places I crossed off in my road travels. The Cotton Palace/Bowl? was one, and the whole state of So. Carolina was another, and believe me, I would go to some very horrible joints. So. Carolina had 1 heist man per every pool hustler, and there were just too many stick-up, murderers in the Dallas Cotton Palace/Bowl?. Keep in mind, I traveled with one of the toughest son of a bit*h in the county, Sugar Shack Johnny Novak. He took no sh*t from anybody, and would not release the cash to a heist man. He would have surely gotten me killed.

the Beard

Freddy, it might have been referred to as the Cotton Bowl by some, but the actual name was Cotton Bowling Palace. In the early 1960's when I hung around the place, we usually referred to it as the Cotton Palace. As for stick-ups occuring there, I witnessed one about 1963. A fellow named Charlie Boyd (whose brother, Bobby Boyd, was an NFL player for several years - I think with the Baltimore Colts) pulled out a pistol in the billiards area and marched a couple of guys back to the restroom. Charlie emerged a few minutes later counting the cash he had just taken. All this in a well-lighted public place! My safety while in that environment was based on two things: first, I never carried enough cash on me to become much of a target for the local thieves, and second, I was friends with Vernon Litton, who at that time was one of the most feared denizens of the place. BTW, I just saw Vernon a few weeks ago in Dallas. Even at the age of 79 he still gives you the feeling that he could easily do you bodily harm were he of the mind to.

 

[freddy the beard]

Charlie Boyd

Freddy, it might have been referred to as the Cotton Bowl by some, but the actual name was Cotton Bowling Palace. In the early 1960's when I hung around the place, we usually referred to it as the Cotton Palace. As for stick-ups occuring there, I witnessed one about 1963. A fellow named Charlie Boyd (whose brother, Bobby Boyd, was an NFL player for several years - I think with the Baltimore Colts) pulled out a pistol in the billiards area and marched a couple of guys back to the restroom. Charlie emerged a few minutes later counting the cash he had just taken. All this in a well-lighted public place! My safety while in that environment was based on two things: first, I never carried enough cash on me to become much of a target for the local thieves, and second, I was friends with Vernon Litton, who at that time was one of the most feared denizens of the place. BTW, I just saw Vernon a few weeks ago in Dallas. Even at the age of 79 he still gives you the feeling that he could easily do you bodily harm were he of the mind to.

Charlie Boyd is the main reason I never ventured into the Cotton Bowl Palace. I was advised of many of his adventures from my other road partner, Three-fingered-Ronnie Sypher who spent a few seasons down there with Titanic Thompsons son. Charlie Boyd and Sugar Shack Johnny Novak would not have been a good mix.

the Beard

 

[RobertR]

You guys are really making me feel young with this thread.

"The good olde days" for me were in the early 80's. Eddie's billiards in Oxnard was my first real experience in a pool room. Brushing tables for free pool time and watching guys like Bill Houck and Whataburger Al. Then, onto Hollywood Billiards the original at Hollywood & Western. Pimps, actors and hustlers, oh my.

 

[3andstop]

You guys are really making me feel young with this thread.

"The good olde days" for me were in the early 80's. Eddie's billiards in Oxnard was my first real experience in a pool room. Brushing tables for free pool time and watching guys like Bill Houck and Whataburger Al. Then, onto Hollywood Billiards the original at Hollywood & Western. Pimps, actors and hustlers, oh my.

Hey I started this thread, LOL and the early days for me were the early to mid 60s. I had no idea these dusty old guys were still around. This is GREAT! God Bless pool players!

I feel young again too! But only a half hour at a time.

 

[Gus]

Old Rooms in Philly

My friend & I used to cut classes in High School & spend all day at Boulevard Billiards in the early 60's, which I beleive is still there and operating at the corner of Roosevelt Boulevard and Robbins.

In the 70's I was working downtown for Bell Telephone, and a few of us would play at lunch every day at Earl Newby's in the basement on Chestnut St. around 11th. There were a bunch of old guys that would eat you alive in 1-hole on a tight 10 foot table.

Does anybody remember Newby's?

 

[jay helfert]

You may have been playing Tommy the Greek. He hung out at 4th and Main in the 60's. A great unacknowledged player, when he was 69 yrs old he played Eddie Taylor to a 24hr draw playing even 1pkt for $100 a game at 4th and Main in the late 60s. He was originally from Chicago in the 30s, 40s. He was a top,top 1pkt player. When I asked him who he thought was the best 1pkt player (in 1968 or 69) he'd ever seen, he said his choice was a young up and comer, "Junior" he called him. Junior turned out to be Ronnie Allen. That Tommy picked him over all the great old-timers was very unusual.
He was always undercover. When I met him it was before he played Taylor, he had me feeling sorry for him, complaining about his bad heart etc., so I didnt ask him to play. I later found out he used the "bad heart" ploy as early as the 40s. As it turned out he was just laying a trap for me! He loved to bet horses too. Anybody with any further info on Tommy would be appreciated by me (real name, etc.).

Wasnt the Cotton Palace also known as the Cotton Bowl? I was never there. There were 2 places I crossed off in my road travels. The Cotton Palace/Bowl? was one, and the whole state of So. Carolina was another, and believe me, I would go to some very horrible joints. So. Carolina had 1 heist man per every pool hustler, and there were just too many stick-up, murderers in the Dallas Cotton Palace/Bowl?. Keep in mind, I traveled with one of the toughest son of a bit*h in the county, Sugar Shack Johnny Novak. He took no sh*t from anybody, and would not release the cash to a heist man. He would have surely gotten me killed.

the Beard

You are probably right about Tommy The Greek. He lived to a ripe old age.
And yes that was the Cotton Bowl. All the road players called it that.

 

[jrhendy]

Pepe used to run around with Baby Huey, and I was always messing with these two trying to beat them. I could beat Jerry sometimes, but I have yet to book a winner with Pepe. I gave up on him 25 years ago.

Jerry still plays pretty sporty nine ball and one pocket since he retired. I believe he has a pool room in the Ventura / Oxnard area, He usually comes to the Hard Times & Reno Tournaments & I expect to see him in June when they move the Reno 9 ball to Sacramento. I haven't seen Pepe in many years. I booked winners against Morro, Ernesto & Veracruz from time to time (not as many as they against me) over the years, but also never beat Pepe. John