Pool and Billiards in ENY and vicinity

Tonite I was  watching  the film The Hustler. The all-time best film centering around the game of pool ( pocket billiards). The movie puts you in a world of seediness, gambling, hustling, sleeziness, and the psychology involved in this hustling world of a game of skill.  Anyway, if you haven't seen this film, see it. Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason amazing.
   So  this inspired me to add a post to my blog. I haven't written in ages. For all I know I already wrote about this stuff.
   When we reached 15 years old we started to go to Murray's pool room. You had to be 16 years old to get in. I am not sure if that was a law or not.  We all had phoney proof  to get in. Usually a whited out birth certificate copy. Murray's aka Biltmore Billiards was located above the Biltmore movie theatre. That was on New Lots Ave. and  Wyona St. in East New York. The proprietor was Murray "Bilty" Finkelstein. His son Moe, was the football coach of Thomas Jefferson High School. Football champs in NYC  many times.
      My memory fails me as to what the business hours of Murray's were.  But if you got there a half hour before the opening, you could  carry the big block of ice upstairs. Yes, he had an icebox. That kept sodas cold. Refrigerators were available. Actually right across the street from  Bressner's.  But Murray was old school, and old, and he had an ice box. If you were lucky enough to carry the ice upstairs, you got a half-hour free time on the pool table. The cost back then was 80 cents an hour.
    The tables were all lined up in a row, close to each other.  They were also close on one end to the wooden wall.  Up front where Murray sat, were two billiard tables. The better players loved billiards. No pockets 3 balls, tough game. I think at this pool room, the best players were Giff who made the most difficult shots imaginable. Dave the Rave who played amazingly good position. So who was the better player?  Hard to say.  Shotsy was also great, as was  Mel the Window-washer, and Manny ( who I still see every once in awhile). Manny collects pool tables and can run 60 balls.
      You could hear the sound of balls clacking. It was a sound I loved.  That mixed with the scoring beads banging into each other. It was an old style pool room. It had old tables and no score keeping thing on the tables. We used wood beads on a wire, with a big bead indicating every 5th bead. The beads was  used to score straight pool. All that background sound was joined in by  people shouting out " Time on Bilty"  or "Time off Bilty".  There were lots of hustlers trying to get you into a game of rotation or 8 balls.  We liked to play rotation when there were 4 of us.  the person who sunk the 1 ball and the person who sunk the 5 ball were a team. The  first team to get 60 points wins ( add up numbers on the balls)... 5.8.10. and 15 balls were money balls. If you  sunk those you got paid for those plus if you win the game.
  The tables were in good shape, all green felt, none of this crazy colored felt. Playboy Billiards downtown Brooklyn near Nevins St and Flatbush, had modern tables with colored felt and score keepers on the table.  They also also allowed women to play.  Murray's, didn't allow women in the pool room.They claimed it was because they only had one toilet, a Men's room. Although, I remember at one point two or three women were allowed in. Leona, Susan with the Mustang and  one other.  Not exactly the girls you would bring home to mama. But I liked them. They didn't play pool they just hung out.
      Giff was a  Murrays celebrity, not just because he was a great pool player, but he was  very wild, and pretty hilarious.  Crazy Lazer was another celebrity, a lot older than we were, he was famous because he did 20 years in Dannamura prison for murder or something. He was small and didn't look dangerous but his eyes had a cold, murderous look. Quite often, some New Lots Boys  would play pool there. I forget who,  but  Joey Jet, Arnie Mandel, Sandy "sick"Schmidt, Jimmy BigHead, others played there and  fights would happen.  One time this glue sniffing Larry aka Dobey Dolan, got in a fight with a guy outside. He had a good move, he threw his jacket over the guys head and started pounding him.  While in the pool room, a good weapon, if need be was the butt end of a  pool cue. Super hard wood.
   Another celeb was  Izzy Knish. Izzy was older, and was a bit mentally challenged. He was  harmless and a nice guy. He kind of humiliated himself all the time, to be liked by the guys. Out on Wyona Street  Izzy would do a  soft shoe shuffle and sing Moon Over Miami.  And everyone would throw quarters at his feet. And Izzy would  say,  "how about more  quarters for Izzy".
   Murrays was where we hangout when we cut out of school.  I played pool mostly with Moony, Jackie, Fuzzy, and Fish or Fatsy. But it varied a lot, depending on who was around,,,,I was a mediocre pool player,,, I think the most balls I ever ran was like 8 but I told people  14.
   Curly's pool room was closer to Jefferson High School. They had a boxing ring in the back, and amateur boxers would fight and people would bet.  Curly's had a mostly Hispanic clientele.  But we liked to play there. It was  10 cents cheaper an hour than Murray's, only 70 cents an hour. They had two Snooker tables. These were longer than regular pool tables and the balls were smaller.  9 ball was a popular game at curly's.  More room between tables.  At Murray;s  you had to take  one of the short cues if you were on one side of the table because a regular size cue would hit the wall.  Curly's also had the beads, and the hanging  lights over the tables.  When you left Curly's  your hands would be filthy, as the felt was rarely cleaned.  My friend Fuzzy liked the convenience of Curly's, since he worked at Fortunoff's. Fortunoff became a famous department store in Westbury and on 57th street in Manhattan, but Maxy Fortunoff started with pushcarts on Livonia Ave. Later  moved into stores. He had about 7 stores, all next to each other, House wares, Healthcare, Bedding, etc After years a suspicious fire happened and  the insurance help build the giant Westbury Dept store.  He hired a guy as VP who was in a  gang called the Monks and then in New Lots Boys. He saw potential in him.
     Curly's was actually in Brownsville as it was on Livonia and Alabama. the far Pennsylvania Ave stop on the New Lots train #2 or 7 or something ,,, we called it the IRT 7th ave. Murray's was closer to the Van Siclen Ave stop, but it wasn't that far from Pennsylvania Ave.
   Joe's pool room was on New Lots Ave. and a lot of tough guys , wise guys, hung out there.
Sometimes we would play at Marions on Eastern Parkway near Nostrand, or go into the city and play at Julian's on 14th street, or Ames.  We also played near Kings Highway, a pool room with an Italian name ( can't think of it).   Later on I knew people from  Queens played at Golden Cue. Lots of great pool players there. My friend Tom the Sailor hustled there.
    The movie brought back great memories of great times, at the pool room. Over the movie theatre that became a Church. We used to see two movies, and  5 cartoons every Saturday.  Walk in to the movie that was  halfway over, sit past the end and  see it up to the part where we came in.  People  yelling at the screen.  Folding popcorn boxes and throwing them into the projector light at the screen. The theaters were super dark then, so when you  opened the door in daytime to let your friends in for free, the light was blinding. The matrons and ushers were mean, and  had flashlights, and if you smoked in other than the last 10 rows, they would throw you out.  After the movie we would go to Nino's for a great slice of pizza or a veal cutlet sandwich.  Nino's was  a great place. When we were younger we would stop at Judy's Sweet Shoppe for candy to bring into the theatre, since it was cheaper.  Sandy would buy chicken corn aka candy corn,  I would  get the chocolate babies or jelly beans.  The good old days.
   

Doo Wop talk

Nothing like the sound of harmony. I think it was Billy Joel who made the song Lookin' for an echo.
Well that's what we did a lot.  It was pretty easy in the projects to find an echo. You just went into the hallway and started singing. Until of course someone reported you to the Housing Police and then they'd chase you  away.
     Hitting Harmony or Chimin' off ,  you'd say " hit a note"  Baaaa, that was me much of the time. I was  mostly a baritone.  Although with  Al and the Candlelights I was  officially the base.
That was  me, Fuzzy, Mass, Lil Wick and Big Wick.  Our demo record was  My Girl ( the flip side of Babalu's wedding day).  I had a great  base part.  A cross between the 4 disks bass and the Marcells.
    I one of the best groups I sang with , We were the Escapades, me, Mass, and  Woody, Moony on the lead.   So many mixes of people that sang together.
   A memorable night was  singing  baratone  with Elk hitting 2nd tenor,  Woody hitting 1st, Moony was bass and  Wendy sang lead. Wendy sang lead for  The Holidays.  We sang When We Get Married by the Dreamlovers  at Elk's house.  It sounded  amazing.  Elk erased the tape.  I think he was jealous of  Wendy's lead.
   Elk always sang lead when we did 40's songs  like  Chattanooga Choo Choo.   Anyway,  we had another group called  Johnny and The Pumps.  Me Johnny, Rigget,  Moony, and Woody.  We even had a manager  Frank.  Somehow he was  hooked up with the Emotions.   It was a funny group.  Rigget had a heavy Brooklyn accent,,, when we sang Sunday Kind of Love   he would  say  True instead of  Through.  " I'm true with my old love I loved her  true and true"  it was pretty hilarious.
     Me and Chupper could hit harmony wthout chiming off. We  knew each others notes.  Me Stanley Chupper and Wein sang at Geno's kids wedding,,,, In the bathroom.  Sounded good.
    Songs we sang were Fine Little Girl,  This is My love, Closer you Are, Mexico, Please say you want me, Sunday kind of love,
Wine Wine Wine, Roaches, some  songs by the Tymes.    So many good tunes.
  We often  would just sing  background. Bom Bo Bom Shoobee doo wah, Doo wop dit dee,
       We all could  recognize a song by the  first note.  I could  picture  Moony, always snapping his fingers  and  moving in time with the beat.   Singing  was amazing if  everyone  hit the right notes.
Quite often, when we were like 15, we would  want  some  wine. We would call it  Singing Juice.  We would  pay this older guy Chan a quarter and he would buy us some  Areba or Thunderbird for  like  90 Cents. That stuff got you messed up, but you could  hit some high notes.
     There are  other stories about drinking too much wine, and it didn't go over too well with my parents.
     We used to hit harmony up at  Curly's with  these guys Fosta and  Domenech ,  They were on an album produced by Al Brown.  They were Johnny and the Moonlights.  One night we went to see them and the  Caravelles  at this Church in Bushwick. It was pretty scary.  Me , Moony, Jackie, Woody, were the only white guys in the place,,,,  The Caravelles sang some Smoky Robinson songs.   They were amazing. The lead singer was  Speedo from  the Impalas.  They made Sorry, I ran all the way home,,,,, I thought I'd have to run all the way home... It was an exciting  night,,,and we made it out of there without  getting in any trouble.
     Anyway, Doo Wop is  so awesome,,,I know it's kind of dead, but things are  coming  back. Hipsters are wearing  tight pants that are  above the ankles.  Reminiscent of the  early 60s.
  So  Goodnite Sweet Heart, well it's Time to go ,,,,,,,,,,