North Shore Billiard Club
This one as described perfectly by George Fels of BD fame. Of course, this is only a snippet of his article, but you get the gist. And they had antique tables, 3C tables, Snooker table, and even Space Invaders !!! Many a nights this teenager slept under one of the tables.......
"That Club was Trump" by George Fels
"THE FACT THAT you had to climb a steep flight of stairs to get there was only the first thing to like about Chicago's North Shore Billiard Club. Pool without stairs is like a hot dog without mustard, and besides, the place was permanently insulated against the ennui of watching recreational players hack away. Every oscillating Richard in the room was good - very good - at something.
Which was, of course, exactly the room that part-owner Fred Bentivegna had in mind: the one place that legit road players would head for immediately when they hit town, just as they had to Bensinger's decades before. Virtually all the top black players in town were comfortable in that white room and neighborhood, a rarity in Chicago or anywhere else: the great John "Cannonball" Chapman even worked there, and Bugs Rucker and his personal Sancho Panza, the late Kenny "Romburg" Remus, were in the place incessantly. So was the personable high-roller called Watusi Slim, whose praying-mantis build allowed him to reach clear across a pool table flat-footed to snatch up a cube of chalk on the opposite rail while hardly bending.
So while Freddy may have envisioned himself center-stage in that high-powered pool arena, he was not even the best white player there. That mantel belonged to Artie Bodendorfer, whose demoralizing, suffocating-type one-pocket game was reminiscent of cuddling up to an anaconda. And with all that blood in the water, you just knew what would come next. Flyboy Spears, Cole Dickson, Jack Cooney, Bill Incardona, and others all made North Shore their first stop, just as Freddy had prophesied, and four-figure scores became the norm.
The ongoing pinochle games were not necessarily sociable either, and yet with all that high-stakes action, and the room's club status which entitled it to remain open all night, North Shore saw absolutely no hassles. That was partly because hasslers were subject to discussing their behavior with Freddy's lower-profile partners, Phil Guagliardo and Bobby Wilkinson; in the club's four or so years, no one ever chose that option nor even remotely considered it. Beyond that, North Sore policed itself extremely well, barring moochers or gamblers who would not pay their debts. The equipment was stellar and the club was always spotless; its logo, an ultra-classy pair of lions in top hats and formal dress, was commissioned and designed by peers of mine in the communications industry. It may have been conceived and built as a shrine to one-on-one gambling, but the North Shore Billiard club was one class act."
