Back in the day,you had to be 16 years old to play pool aka pocket billiards in a pool room. The majority of pool rooms only allowed men to enter. The exception was Playboy Billiards located Downtown Brooklyn, and they had different colored pool tables. They say, women weren't allowed because there was only a men's toilet. In the pool room we frequented most, there were a couple of girls that did enter, no one seemed to mind. At 15 yrs old we had our fake ID's so we became regulars at Murray's pool room. Murray was located above the Biltmore Movie theater on New Lots Ave and Wyona St. There's a grocery store there now. The owner Murray aka Bilty would give us a free half hour to play if we brought the block of ice upstairs for the ice box that kept the soda cold. Murray was the Jefferson HS football coaches father by the way. The pool room was always packed, with 2 billiard tables in the front. There were a few great players there , Giff, Shotsy, Big Mel the Window Washer, Dave the Rave, and Manny. Each had their own style, Some played amazing position and never had to make a tough shot. Others made the most incredible shots. I was just an average player. The most balls i ever ran was like 14 balls. Murrays was narrow and if you had some shots where your cue would hit the wall , you had to use a short cue stick They were old Atlantic tables and we kept with beads on an overhead wire. The sound of balls cracking against each other and people yelling "time off Bilty" "time on Bilty" was constant. If we weren't playing straight pool, a 50 point game, we would play rotation. In that game you had to hit the one ball first before you hit another ball. If the one was sunk, then it would be the 2 ball that had to get hit first or just sink the 2 if you had a clear shot. The 5,8,10, and 15 balls were money balls. You got extra money if you sunk those. You needed 60 points to win the game and you got money for that. If you were 4 people, the players who made the 1 and the 5 balls were on the same team. It was a fun game. There was a guy who hung out there that served 20 years in Danamura prison for murder, his name was Crazy Laser. Their was a kinda retarded guy named Izzy Knish who hung outside and sang and danced for quarters. Alot of wild people there. Sometimes there were fights and the cue stick handle was a very good weapon. Other neighborhood pool rooms were Joe's on New Lots where mostly New Lots Boys hung out. Then there was Curly's on Livonia and Alabama Ave. The tables were filthy. Whenever we saw our friends with really dirty hands we knew they were at Curly's. Curly's was 10 cents an hour cheaper than Murray's. It was 70 cents for an hour for the table. In the back of Curly's was a Boxing ring and they would have amateur boxing matches that people would bet on. They had some long pool tables, called Snooker tables. A popular game in Curly's was 9 ball. 9 ball had a diamond shaped rack. I don't remember the rules. Curly's was a more integrated crowd, White, Black, Asian and Hispanics. Some friends of mine from the Puerto Rican Eltone gang and from the singing group johnny and the monnlights would hang out there.
On occasion we would travel to Flatbush and play pool at Joe Spinelli's, or we would go to Marian's on Eastern Parkway around Nostrand Ave. That was a pretty tough neighborhood, I think it was Bedford Stuyvesant, right across from Crown Heights. Pool was the #1 past time, especially in the winter when it was too cold to play basketball. Alot of people would steal the cue balls from the pool room because I think originally they were made of ivory. Now I want to shoot some pool. "Time on Bilty"
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