Everyone Back into Pool!

By Howard G. Chua-Eoan

Proficiency at billiards, it has been said, is a sign of a misspent youth. That is putting it politely. Pocket billiards, commonly known as pool, has had image problems for decades. The pool hall housed illicit kingdoms of numbers | runners and gangsters, winos and bums, four-letter-word expectorators and hustlers named Fats. Trouble brewed in every corner. Sharks infested the murky waters. "You had to watch out for all the spit on the floor," recalls a denizen of the old parlors in Ohio. "Any women who'd come around, you wondered what they did for a living."

So what's this? The Manhattan pedestrian spots a banner flapping in the cold night wind: THE BILLIARD CLUB. Yet the scene beneath it is not a dimly lighted doorway, attended by a tattooed bouncer, but monstrous picture windows straight out of Trump Tower. Behind the glass, peacock feathers wave from porcelain planters. Within, fashionable men and women lay cues to green felt. A sticker at the door indicates that, yes, the club does take American Express. Welcome to the new world of pool.

From Boston to Miami, from Dallas to Chicago, pool halls are back with a vengeance, with yuppies leading the way. New converts chalk their cues like old-timers and gladly shell out up to $10 an hour for tables, as classical music and the latest in jazz and rock play in the background. During the past 14 months, Manhattan has seen the opening of four plush pool palaces catering to upscale players. The Billiard Club, which opened in August and takes in an estimated 1,500 customers on weekends, has a downstairs Safari Room, where players shoot pool amid zebra skins, mounted sailfish and a stuffed bobcat. In Boston, Jillian's Billiard Club has a private room, furnished as an English gentleman's library, that rents for $30 an hour. "It's becoming a glamour sport," observes Ed Irwin, a banker by day and a player by night.

"People want to see and be seen," says the Billiard Club's co-owner Barry Renert. At M.K., one of New York City's trendiest night spots, the club's two tables are always occupied, as the glitterati take turns shooting and racking 'em up. In Chicago the equally hip Limelight has eight-ball tournaments, and at the new-wave Star Top Cafe clients can munch on soft-shell crab while waiting their turn. Even at old game dens, the pool surge is evident as the gentry mix with the proletariat. Says Richard Gaedt of Chicago's North Center Bowl: "In the past six months, our whole crowd has changed from older to younger, to yuppies." Adds Jillian's co-owner Kevin Troy: "A few years back, health clubs were a big place to socialize. Now we're seeing the same thing over pool tables."

Players do not have to be Minnesota Fats to enjoy making balls go click- plunk into side pockets. "It's an addictive sport," says pool marketer Barry Dubow. "As soon as you sink two in a row, you want to get three." That simplicity of play, coupled with the change in atmosphere, has attracted new clientele, including women. Says Renert: "Women come by themselves, they come in groups, and they come with men."

Pool places only a modest burden on the wallet at a time when dinner and an evening out for two can inflict triple-digit damage. "It's cheap entertainment," says New York banker Stephen Eisenstein. "You can come by and meet a friend and chat -- or not -- as you choose." Nor is the sport as physically demanding as the swingles scene. Says real estate investor Miles Levine: "Sex and drugs are out. We're going back to a more conservative time."

In fact, on the West Coast, where billiard gentrification has yet to catch on, the large, established pool halls cater to families. Says manager Mort Brock of Tommy T's in suburban Portland, Ore.: "Pool has cleaned up its act. A lot of people come in here and say, 'Gee, we can't believe there's a place like this.' "

Pool-equipment manufacturers are strapped for tables, cues and other paraphernalia to meet the demand. "It really accelerated in 1986 after the release of The Color of Money," says Jim Bakula of the Brunswick Corp. in Bristol, Wis. Watching Paul Newman and Tom Cruise slug it out helped glamourize the game. In the past two years, pool-table sales have more than doubled, with 90% of the sales made to private homes.

Today Jersey Whitey, Carolina Slim, Alex the Greek and other pungent monikers of old sharks are simply quaint and colorful, and Minnesota Fats is the name of the overstuffed sandwich served at the Billiard Club. Still, mainstream pool will not wash away its old legacy. Slang like "snookered," "behind the eight ball" and "bad break" still means misfortune or treachery. The sport's new respectability may sadden those who savor the raunchiness of the old dives. For it was there, in the ramshackle shelter of the pool hall, on the margins of society, that one could, with luck and a certain impunity, misspend one's youth.

With reporting by Mike Cannell/New York with other bureaus