Eastside Billiards

I read about Eastside Billiards last year in a New York Times Urban Tactics piece by George Morin. I remember reading that it was close to where Cory Lidle crashed his airplane into a highrise residential building on 72nd Street. Shortly after I read the article I'm sure that I googled Eastside and made a point of visiting. But actually making a trip uptown would be a long time coming.

And so it was over a year later, last Sunday, as I was on my way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art when it dawned on me "Oh yeah, there's that poolhall somewhere up there." But I couldn't remember where it was, or even its name. I had a vague recollection that it was in the 80s somewhere, but no idea as to what avenue. Considering I had to meet some people in front of the Met, I figured I'd only get a quick peek at the place, with no time to actually play. So I got off the bus at 86th and wolfed down a cheeseburger at the nearest diner. Somehow thinking the poolhall was on 83rd, I headed south. I approached a man who looked like a neighborhood resident and asked if he knew of the place, to which he replied "Is it upstairs?" That, yes, I remembered. He pointed me back toward 86th and told me that it was on the north side of the street. I spotted it quickly, a bright orange awning at 163 E. 86th Street between Third and Lexington. Within minutes I was upstairs at Eastside talking to the man on duty, Vernon, who graciously agreed to let me take a few quick snaps.

The space has been a poolhall since 1991, when it was called Eastside Amusements. Originally, there were only 11 pool tables. But in order to compete with the nearby Amsterdam Billiards Club just down the street at 210 E. 86th, a slew of arcade games was brought in to Eastside to differentiate it from Amsterdam. A few years ago Amsterdam closed its doors on the Upper East Side and soon followed suit on its Upper West Side location. It was during this period that Jerry Shipman bought Eastside and took it "from being a ratty arcade-and-pool hangout for local teenagers" and turned it into a full-fledged poolhall ("a cultural asset that no self-respecting New York neighborhood should be without"). By getting rid of the arcade games (and the inherent "riff-raff") Shipman was able to add five more tables. Eastide currently has 15 full-sized tables and one coin-operated table (set for $1.50/game), with plans to add one more full-sized table.

The Cory Lidle accident took place on a rainy mid-October day last year. The article in the Times ran about a month later. I couldn't figure out why the plane crash was even mentioned. My guess is that the reporter had already planned to check out Eastside Billiards that night, and with the plane crash having occurred several hours earlier, perhaps he thought it would make the article a little more "moody." Indeed, when combined with the photo (of Shipman racking some balls) I get a sort of somber, rainy-night vibe from it all. I covered the plane crash that day, so I was curious how one reporter would end up writing about a poolhall when a major news story was happening a mile away. So I called Eastside and spoke with Shipman. As it turns out, the writer plays or used to play a lot of pool at Eastside. He was impressed with how Shipman turned the place around. So he pitched the article to the Times and one other paper. Neither Shipman nor myself were crazy about the photo, taken by Liz O. Baylen (who at 28 is "one of America's most notable young photojournalists"). I am of the school of thought that says if you're going to feature somebody's back so prominently in a photograph, there better be a good reason for it: i.e. the person doesn't want to be photographed, which certainly was not the case here. To be fair, I would bet anything that Baylen submitted many others that showed faces but that some page layout person preferred a more anonymous view of the place.

At any rate, I was happy to finally got to see firsthand what Eastside Billiards is all about. It seems like there's an interesting history there. Considering that my visit was on a warm Sunday afternoon in October, I wasn't too upset that I couldn't stay longer. It'll be cold and rainy and dreary in no time. I think that's when I'll head back.

Slim Pickins

Not much to report these days. Hopefully I'll have a new batch of pictures before long. This is one from Sophie's taken in late August.

Snagged

I was stoked to discover yesterday, during my weekly page-through of the Village Voice, that one of my pool pictures made it into the Voice's annual Best of NY issue. My longtime photo editor there, Staci Schwartz, was kind enough last week to email me a long list of things for which she needed photos. One of the photos she was looking for was "a closeup of a cool tattoo on someone’s arm or someone getting tattooed." A picture I had taken recently at Doc Holliday's was the first image that came to mind. It was a picture of an outstretched hand with a huge fish hook embedded in it. The picture up top I think has a little more depth to it. I like the pool table in the background. But the one at right is the one I submitted to the Voice because it shows the tattoos a lot more clearly. If I ever run into that guy again at Doc Holliday's I'm sure he'll appreciate that I got the photo into the Voice. I remember asking him about the hook and him saying something along the lines of "Yeah, straight out of Serpico." I'll have to watch that movie sometime and see what he's talking about. At any rate, that's definitely my favorite thing about freelancing—getting the "Do you have any photos of_____?" calls or emails. Incidentally, these two photos were shot on film. And so whenever people see my Leica and ask "Is that a digital camera?" I always go on to tell them how ironic it is that my "personal work" mostly ends up on the web, in the form of digital scans from negatives. Whereas all my "work work" is done digitally, primarily for newspapers, and ends up being reproduced as halftone images on grimy newsprint. Regardless of the medium, it's always rewarding whenever any of my "personal work" gets published.

Billiard Tables on the Big Screen

Once I was reading something about Martin Scorsese where it said that he had directed a Michael Jackson video. Some time later I was watching something on YouTube when it popped back into my head. So I searched for the first Michael Jackson video that came to mind, Beat It. When I got to the part of the video that's shot in what appears (at first glance) to be a poolhall, I naively assumed it was the work of Scorsese. Only because it reminded me so much of the scene he would later direct in The Color of Money at Chalkie's, where Vincent plays Mozel. But I quickly figured out it Beat It was not directed by Scorsese. It was the video for Bad—lamely excerpted from an 18-minute film—that was directed by Scorsese. A different Italian-American, Bob Giraldi, was the director for Beat It. Regardless of who directed what, I couldn't help but notice the pocketless tables in Beat It. I thought "that's pretty bad ass to film around billiard tables." No doubt 99 percent of all people who've ever seen Beat It have overlooked the absence of pockets. But it was cool watch Beat It again after so many years. I had long known about the Eddie Van Halen solo in the song. But what I didn't know was that, during the recording of the solo, "a technician who was unaware Van Halen was beginning a take knocked on the studio door, entered and quickly closed it when he realized his error. Afterwards, it was jointly decided to leave this mistake in; the knock on the door is clearly audible just prior to the launch of Van Halen's guitar solo."

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, Yvonne brought home "Mean Streets," which is an early film by Scorsese. We finally got around to watching it last night. Pool is sprinkled throughout this movie, but there's an extended fight scene that takes place in a downstairs or basement poolhall. Acccording to the dialogue, it's on King Street. I would love to know where this poolhall is or was actually located. Check out the scene here (or go to bottom of post). The beginning of the clip shows them driving from high overhead, and I cannot for the life of me figure out where it was shot. If you watch closely you see that they make a left turn onto a one-way street that's going the opposite direction. Then all of a sudden it jumps to them on Bleecker Street about to turn right (downtown) onto Bowery. A summary of Mean Streets can be read here here. In this clip there are billiard tables, pool tables and what appear to be snooker tables:

A Pool Player's Commute

For this fall session we got moved into a different division. We were in Division #014 and now we're in Division #013. Caveman said it's common for that to happen every few years, expected even. I don't know how it happened, but I'm not complaining. I'm actually pretty excited about it. Not only do I think it's awesome that we'll be facing a whole new division of pool players, but the venues are all much closer to Sophie's. In our new divsion, the farthest north we have to go is 14th Street.

In what may take the cake as the biggest pool-dork idea ever, I've made a map comparing our old division locations (green) to those of our new division (red). Sophie's is marked with the blue circled X. If you look closely you'll see that some green and red arrows overlap. That's because three bars–-O'Hanlon's, Josie Wood's and Whiskey Ward--are all places that we played in our old division.

Bars from our old division that I won't miss: Paddy McGuires (two-dollar tables, not very good seating for visiting team), Barfly (nice table but it's too big for the space, a white pole gets in the way) and Why Not (cramped table, too far from Sophie's). Bars that I will miss most: Maker's (lots of seating and plenty of clearance around pool table) and McSwiggan's (same reasons as Maker's, but with added convenience of the M15 bus stop right outside the front door). Peter Dillon's (right) was another nice place to play. Granted, these critiques are my own personal opinions. And none reflect the personalities of the people we play at the venues. I know Sophie's is not without its own shortcomings.

This week we just had our first away game at one of the new venues, Edge Bar. I am no stranger to Edge. A tight table for sure, but at least they have nice Trouble Shooter short cues of varying lengths to choose from. Getting a high-quality short cue is an idea I would like to see implemented at two other new venues we'll visit: Lucky Jack's and Musical Box.

Logistical things aside, there is something to be said for all the times I've been in a cab or on the bus headed back to Sophie's after a great match elsewhere. I would say the commute is definitely a different kind of team-bonding experience. Below, Slima watches a train approach after our playoff loss to Why Not in September.

Membership Has Its Privileges

In late September I renewed my membership over at the Hamilton Fish Recreation Center. A six-month renewal cost me twenty-five dollars. That's 14 cents per day. To practice pool. On big tables. Instead of sitting here at my computer, it is most likely where I'd be this very moment if the place wasn't closed early for Columbus Day. I started playing at the rec center in early 2006, around the same time I joined the APA. Since then, there have been times where I've gone over a month without stopping by to practice. It's hard to get into any groove or get any kind of respect when you have such a spotty attendance record. And I realized playing only in bars was depleting my cash flow too quickly. So for most of 2007 I've been going pretty regularly, two or three times per week on average. When I saw a Skill Level 5 ranking next to my name on the scoresheet last season, the first thing I thought was "all that practice over at the rec center has paid off." I've long ago come to the conclusion one does not become a 5, 6 or a 7 by just playing on league nights. A lot of the players in the league that I've come to know and sort of "keep my eye on" all definitely practice throughout the week. I haven't played in a match in almost a month, and having the rec center for practice has become a good way to stay somewhat in stroke. Granted, there are many times where I go to the rec center and I'm just not feeling it. It'll take me three games before I finally get any sort of toehold. Other times I'm on fire, stringing together six, seven, or eight wins in a row, which is actually much more of an accomplishment than doing so at Sophie's. One thing is for certain though, at least at the rec center. We've all beaten one another many times. There's nobody who's unbeatable.

Mississippi Delta

A couple times over the past few years I've come across a photography book by Birney Imes called "Juke Joint." The last time was about six months ago, at the McNally Robinson bookstore on Prince Street. The book is a photographic study of the juke joints scattered along the Mississippi Delta. Juke joints can be defined as "primitive rural counterparts of resort night clubs" where "the blues was incubated until it gelled into a recognizable art form." Naturally, the juke joints Imes photographed are all oozing with character. Photographed in the 1980s, the dilapidated, run-down, ramshackle structures are remnants of a dying era. Looking at the photographs, I couldn't help but notice that many of the juke joints have pool tables. "Good idea for a blog post," I thought. Click here to see a gallery of images from the book. And then go check out the high resolution version of the cover photo, which was taken at the Riverside Lounge in Shaw, Mississippi in 1986. Some reviews of the book can be read here and an amusing account of a speech Imes once gave can be read here.

Around the same time I came across "Juke Joint" I was at a bar with a copy of the New York Times spread out in front of me. On the front page, below the fold, was a picture taken in one of those juke joints, a place called Po' Monkey's in Merigold, Mississippi. The photo, taken by Nicole Bengiveno, features two men playing pool. So I took a picture of the newspaper. After all, it's not every day that the editors of one of the biggest and best papers in the world choose to publish on the front page a photo of people playing pool:So when the time came for me to begin writing this post, I did a quick google images search for juke joint and came up with a treasure trove of great images. One of my favorites (at the very top) is a photo taken at Po' Monkey's by Brett Peruzzi and Robyn Gold. Their journey of the Mississippi Delta juke joints can be read here. An exterior of Po' Monkey's (taken by Daryl Thetford):
Another fantastic image I found was one taken by Bill Steber. Steber's photograph of women dancing at Junior Kimbrough’s juke joint in Chulahoma, Mississippi was part of an extended essay on blues culture in Mississippi. The work earned him an Alicia Patterson Foundation Grant in 1998. Not only is it an iconic moment, but if you look closely you can see a pool table in the backround:All of this made me recall reading the book "The Color of Money" by Walter Tevis. My favorite part of the book is when Eddie Felson is encouraged by Minnesota Fats (with whom he has been playing a series of televised straight pool matches) to get back into the game by touring the South and hitting all the roadhouses. In the book, Eddie is based out of Lexington, Kentucky so he's not far away. He starts in the fictional town of Haneyville, North Carolina. And then he gets some serious action on the doorstep of the Delta, in Memphis, where he plays at "the hottest place in the whole South," a bar called Thelma's. Here he plays for $1000 per game in 8-ball (on bar tables set up for 25-cent games, no less).

The only geographic reference in the movie version of The Color of Money is the 9-ball tournament in Atlantic City, New Jersey. But most of the movie was filmed in Chicago. I think the scenes from the South in the book version would make an excellent basis for a film. And I think the perfect place to begin would be Messenger's Poolhall in Clarksdale, Mississippi. "Part pool hall and domino den...and part café and juke joint," Messenger's was the subject of a documentary in 2005, as well as a feature article in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger (story can be found here, scroll down a bit). I know I would love to visit all these places. This shot of Messenger's by Daryl Thetford says it all: