The Poolroom as a Social Club

A poolroom was supposed to be about billiards.

But anybody who spent enough time in one knew better.

The tables were the center of the room.

They weren't necessarily the reason everybody was there.

A man might come in intending to play a few games and end up sitting at the counter for three hours. Another might stop by after work, read the newspaper, drink a cup of coffee, and never pick up a cue.

Somebody was always coming through the door.

Somebody was always leaving.

And somebody always knew something.

That was the old poolroom.

Part billiard hall.

Part neighborhood club.

Part information exchange.

The Regulars

Every room had them.

The man who arrived first.

The man who stayed until closing.

The fellow who knew exactly which table played best.

The player who never seemed to have enough money for a game but somehow always had enough money for coffee.

The old-timer who didn't play much anymore but still had an opinion about everybody's stroke.

These people gave the room its personality.

A table could be replaced.

The cloth could be replaced.

Even the name over the front door could eventually change.

But the regulars were the institution.

They were the memory of the room.

You Didn't Have to Play

One of the most interesting things about the traditional poolroom was that playing was not necessarily required.

You could watch.

You could talk.

You could read.

You could wait for a friend.

You could sit at the rail and listen to two players argue about whether a ball had actually kissed the cushion.

You could learn something without ever putting a dollar on the table.

For a young player, this was especially important.

The poolroom was an education long before anybody called it one.

You learned how people handled themselves.

You learned the language of the game.

You learned which players were serious.

You learned which tables were fast.

And, perhaps most importantly, you learned when to keep your mouth shut.

The Newspaper and the Coffee Cup

The old room was also connected to the rest of the city.

Newspapers were read at counters.

Sports scores were discussed.

Horse races were argued over.

Local news traveled from one table to another.

The poolroom could become a small clearinghouse of information.

Not official information.

Poolroom information.

The kind that arrived with a man's coat still wet from the rain and was repeated before he had finished his coffee.

Some of it was accurate.

Some of it wasn't.

But everybody listened.

Waiting for the Table

Then there was the great social activity of waiting.

A good table could be worth waiting for.

Players sat nearby and watched the game ahead of them.

They studied the players.

They studied the table.

They studied the conditions.

By the time their name came up, they already knew how the cloth was playing and whether the cushions were lively.

Waiting was not wasted time.

It was reconnaissance.

And sometimes the man sitting quietly in the corner learned more than the man holding the cue.

The Poolroom Clock

The room also had its own sense of time.

Afternoon players arrived.

After-work players followed.

The evening crowd gradually replaced them.

Later came the serious players, gamblers, road men, and the people who simply didn't seem interested in going home.

Closing time could be a flexible concept.

A room with enough action had its own rhythm.

The city outside might be shutting down.

Inside, the balls were still moving.

A Place to Belong

This is where the social history of the poolroom becomes interesting without needing to turn the room into something it wasn't.

It was a place where people gathered.

That simple fact mattered.

A good room created familiarity.

People knew one another.

They knew the tables.

They knew the owner.

They knew who was playing well.

They knew who had been away for a week.

They noticed when somebody new walked through the door.

And after enough years, the room became part of people's personal geography.

Not home.

Not work.

Something in between.

A place you could walk into and immediately know who was there.

When the Room Disappeared

That is part of what was lost when many traditional poolrooms disappeared.

It wasn't only the tables.

It was the social machinery around them.

The chairs.

The counter.

The newspaper.

The arguments.

The waiting.

The regulars.

The man who had been sitting in the same chair for twenty years.

The poolroom was never just a place where balls were struck.

It was a place where people spent time.

And sometimes that was the real attraction.

You came in for the game.

You stayed for the room.