Sophie's photo roundup, part four

It was quite a shock last week when I heard that Sophie's had made the New York Post's "Page Six." Somebody quickly pulled out a copy for me to read:

December 20, 2007 -- It may be the final nail in the shared coffin of East Village dive bars. Two longstanding holes-in-the-wall, Sophie's on East Fifth Street and its sister spot, Mona's on Avenue B, are up for sale. "The neighborhood has changed so much," co-owner Bob Corton told Page Six. "I love both bars, but they're dinosaurs now." Corton plans to sell the low-lit saloons after the holidays. He has run Sophie's, which adopted its name from its original owner, the late Sophie Polny, since 1986. He opened Mona's in '89. Corton assured us he'll stay in the neighborhood but couldn't predict the future of his beloved drink tanks: "Once the places are sold, what happens to them is really out of my hands."

Wow. I've been thinking a lot about this the past week. Obviously, I just hope that whoever buys Sophie's and/or Mona's doesn't strip either place of its essential character. It seems to me there's a real appreciation for these kinds of well-worn gathering places. Spring of 2008 is shaping up to be an interesting time.
But the holiday season is a real down-time for the pool league, the matches are few and far between. Personally, I've had a hard time keeping up any kind of momentum. There were only two times this season where I played matches on back-to-back weeks. Even if I play in our final match on January 8th, I'll be 50/50 in terms of weeks I played vs. weeks I sat out. Next season I want to avoid that. The only person on our team who has played less than me is our official captain, Caveman. Unfortunately, he's been in the hospital a lot lately and thus has only three matches played.
There have been some good times as always, sure. "Definitely," as Slima always says. I just wish I didn't get that little nag of guilt every time I go out for a night of pool. It just seems like it's a little frivolous in times like these, when my workload is very light. Still, I long to get back to Sophie's this weekend. One of the last times I was there I had a great night, stringing eight or nine wins together.
I am trying to wrap up 2007, get caught up on paperwork, take any assignments I can get between the holidays. The biggest thing on my plate is that within the next few days I'm going to find out for sure if I'll be moving to the East Village. A good friend of mine is subleasing her spacious fifth floor walkup on 7th Street close to Avenue A, and it would be a perfect place for Yvonne and I to take care of until late 2009. I have grown fond of the neighborhood in the last few years. But considering the lingering uncertainty about Sophie's, the timing of this move could be bittersweet. We'll see.

Musical Box

Yet another post from the "my picture doesn't do this bar justice" department (thankfully, I've found two other pictures online). I am talking about Musical Box, a bar up at 13th and Avenue B. The bar is known for being somewhat hard to find. In fact, when we played there last month, my teammates couldn't find it despite having the exact address. But as it turned out, the bar hadn't even opened yet for business that day.

It's all good because Musical Box is a great place to play pool. I know they have at least a couple APA teams, so naturally it's going to be a good breeding ground for pool players. Still, we hosted, and beat, a team from there back in October. I played last that night and got beat 2-3 by a new APA player who got to start as a SL4. He got two games ahead, then I came back with two to tie it, and then he finished me off in the 5th. Admittedly, their captain warned me he was probably more like a SL6-7. One of the more memorable matches for me as a 5.

So I was on somewhat of a vendetta a few weeks ago to play at Musical Box. We were slated to play a different Musical Box team, named "Chuck Jager," which has two players, Darin and Will, who are both non-league regulars at Sophie's. I was hoping to make a strong showing. But we got off to a dreadful 0-3 start. One of our 4s lost 1-3 to a 4. Another one of our 4s got beat 1-2 by a 3. And then one of our 3s got shut out 0-3 vs a 4. By that point I was more than a little determined to try to turn the match around. So I went up against a 4 and played what was arguably my best match ever, winning 4-1. Really my only mistake was when I was jacked up against a rail near a corner pocket going for a pocket-hanging 8 ball deep in the opposite corner. I tried to cheat the pocket in order to avoid a cue ball follow-in scratch, but I missed the 8 ball altogether, giving my opponent ball in hand and his sole win. Two games later I nailed a tough reverse-angle cross-corner full-table bank for a win. The real triumph of that evening, however, was when our beloved Slima went up in the final match and shut out his opponent to salvage the night for us, 2-3. And we certainly celebrated once we were back home at Sophie's.

As I said, the place is a fine place to play, great for league nights. I seem to recall that the light above the table was a tad too close to the playing surface. But the more I think about it, it could just be the fact that it's a black-felted table and so it soaks up the light and heat more than a green table? At any rate, a very nicely lit table (see my photo above, which appears to be somewhat blown out even though it's a black surface). The table is pretty tight on one side, mainly due to the stools that can get in the way. But it's pretty much the exact same way at Sophie's. The very first time I went to Musical Box was on a super-crowded weekend night. There were actually people leaning against the table as people were playing. But on a Monday or Tuesday night, Musical Box is going to be slow enough that you can move the stools altogether if want to. There's something about the fact that the bar is so non-descript on the outside. And even then, once you walk inside, you don't immediately see the pool table. So the presence of the pool table is very understated, even sophisticated. Some online reviewers made very specific mentions of the pool table when describing the bar overall. One writes, "There is quite a nice pool table in the back room that is often occupied by pool league teams, but if you can snag it you can enjoy a few games on it before some sharks challenge you and win the table." Another warns patrons to expect "to get some cue in your face." (Additional color photos by Shanna Rivindra, middle, and Shecky's, bottom)

Astoria

Have you ever walked by a bar and, without looking inside, thought to yourself "I bet anything there's a pool table in there." That happened to me twice one night several weeks ago when I was in Astoria for an assignment to photoraph a Moroccan restaurant. I had taken the V train to the Steinway stop. Once I got to street level I was walking along when I spotted a bar called Doyle's Corner. I made a mental note to check it out on my way back. I got to the restaurant right on time, forged my way through an awkward "no patrons present" situation and was out of there, tummy filled with couscous, in about 45 minutes. On my way back to Doyle's I approached a bar called Crehan's Pub. It looked promising. The front door was propped open and I could see a pool table (right) way in the back. So I went in and introduced myself to the bartender, who I think was happy to see me pull out a business card and not an NYPD badge (I didn't dare show her my NYPD-issued press credential). I told her I play a lot of pool and that I just wanted to check out the pool table. To my surprise she said "Sure, take a picture of it!" So I went back to take a look. Nobody was playing. It was a typical bar table, I don't remember if it was a dollar or what. But I could feel the suspicious gaze of some old men as I was looking around. I took out my camera and took a few frames, one of which was sort of directed back toward the bar and everybody in it. I overheard one of the men ask "What's he taking pictures of?" I felt self-conscious, a little goofy, so I left pretending I hadn't heard him. I was in and out easily within three minutes.

Walking back I had sort of lost my bearings. In Astoria it's a lot of high-numbered avenues intersecting with high-numbered streets, like 31st Avenue and 41st Street. Once I straightened out which way to go I was trying to remember if I'd ever played pool in Queens before. Sure, I have played lots of three-cushion, but the only time I could think of where I'd actually played pool was after one of said three-cushion sessions at Carom Cafe. I couldn't, and still can't, recall a time where I'd played pool at a bar in Queens. When Yvonne and I were first dating, she lived in Maspeth. And I quickly identified a couple places near her home that had pool tables, but I never played at any of them. I got to Doyle's and was glad to see not only a pool table, but a pool table that was in use. It was the very same situation: walk in, approach the bartender, explain who I am and what I want to do, etc. He seemed to be a tad skeptical, although I realize how it puts people on the spot when I come into a bar unannounced like that. Perhaps a little worried he wasn't automatically saying "Sure, go ahead!" I said "Actually, you know what? I'll take a pint of Miller and two dollars in quarters." That's probably what I should have done in the first place, just gone in and played the role of an unassuming customer. But it wasn't my intention to actually play, only because it was getting late and I still had to get back home. At any rate, once it was my turn I played pretty well, putting some flashy english onto the cue ball and breaking up a lot of clusters. I won the first game pretty easily. When shaking the guy's hand he said something along the lines of "If you want a really good pool player, you should play the bartender. I'll leave it at that."

So the next guy I played knew about the APA, even knew league rules, but we still called all shots. He was very talkative and friendly. By this time I could see that the table was incredibly off-kilter, in serious need of releveling. Still, I was playing convincingly and by the end of my second game I was in a no-brainer runout situation. But I neglected to take into account that the effects of the slant/tilt of a pool table are greatly increased at slower speeds. So when I went for my second-to-last shot and tried to drift the cue ball with some follow, it ended up going on a nearly 45-degree tangent as it came to a stop. The cue ball was nearly two feet from where I had planned to it to be. Still, I went for a bank shot but missed badly. I think my opponent sensed my frustration with the table. So instead of going for the simple cut shot I had left him with, he banked the 8 the full length of the table and nailed it. Which was probably a good thing because the bartender was next on the list.

Gateway to the East Village

I suppose I've had a blog post about Nice Guy Eddie's on the back burner for a while now. Whenever I'm going to the East Village, nine times out of ten I'll walk right by there. It's the kind of place I dismissed for a long time. Heck, I dismissed the East Village the first five years I lived here. Perhaps it was the garish KISS mural outside, or it reminded me a lot of the kinds of places I disliked in college. I always thought of it as a "lowest common denominator" bar, or very "Indianapolis." I guess I just thought it lacked sophistication.

But I obviously had a change of heart, somewhere around 2004. The first time I stepped in was to have a beer before meeting a friend for a show across the street at Mercury Lounge. Actually, it was an old neighbor of mine from Stanton, a musician by the name of Andrew Goodsight, who had used one of my photos as artwork on the cover of his CD. At that time he was living in Florida but was back in NYC visiting and had invited me to the show, some friends of his who were performing. I arrived early and naively thought I would be on the list. Instead of forking over the $10 cover I went across the street to Nice Guy Eddie's. A little later he called and I told him where I was and so he came over and we had 2-for-1s instead of going to the show (he met up with his friends afterwards).

I remembered the cheap happy hour and have since suggested Nice Guy Eddie's as a meeting place, particularly for people coming from other parts of the city because it's so close to the F train. I of course began stopping in to play pool, and for a while it was my favorite place to get warmed up before heading to Sophie's. I remember the first time I played pool there, there was a guy who was a damn good player. He was playing a much weaker player, but he hit the eight in early on a bad roll and had to sit down. Then it was my turn to play, and I pretty much destroyed the weaker player. It was very much an adrenaline game, the kind where I go on automatic and come across as a flawless player. Then, the next player I played was a lot better and for whatever reason I started making stupid mistakes. The first player noticed these mistakes and was scoffing at me, essentially accusing me of missing shots on purpose. What could I tell him? I can be a pretty inconsistent player.

Nice Guy Eddie's is one of the new places we played this season in our different division. I was looking forward to playing there and seeing who all on their team I might know. There were a few familiar faces, in particular Joe B. (in white shirt above), who I remembered from killer pool at Edge. We had a good time there, eeking out a 3-2 win against a very evenly matched team.

I wrote "Gateway to the East Village" as the title because Nice Guy Eddie's is the first place I look into when I'm entering the East Village on one of my pool tours. Because of the happy hour and the $1 table, I can easily make my dollar last a bit longer there. Even if it's only long enough to figure out where I'm headed next.

The Sixth Ward

I found a new bar the other day that has a pool table. Naturally, the first thing I always think in such a situation is "I need to do a blog post about this place." Then it's "I wonder who all esle already knows about this place," followed by "I wonder who's going to start a team here before me." Later on I always find myself in the predicament of wanting to write about the bar, but only having empty pictures of the pool table.

In the case of The Sixth Ward, it's a rare situation where I've photographed the bar (or restaurant) long ago and have some idea of "then and now." The Sixth Ward is a recent reincarnation of a restaurant that I photographed almost two years ago for the Times. Back then it was called Heirloom, and it served a vegetarian menu. I lost track of Heirloom, as it's on a stretch of Orchard Street that soon became a hassle to navigate due to construction on both sides of the street. Read here to get the most current dirt on the location, which is 191 Orchard. Yvonne and I had been walking by several weeks ago when we saw a new awning. I looked in and saw the telltale sliver of green felt. A few days later I went back to take some pictures. The pool table is in the back of the bar, in a sort of in-between area that joins the main part of the bar to its garden in the back. The pool table is in a kind of greenhouse-like space, lots of daylight. I only had my fifty millimeter lens with me, so it was a little tight for pictures. I was determined to make it back to Sixth Ward to actually play some people before writing anything. So after getting knocked off the Sophie's table on a Thursday night that's exactly what I did. Nobody was playing when I got there so I started hitting some balls around. After a while I saw a couple eyeing the table and nearby pinball machine and I asked if they wanted to play. Long story short, if I remember correctly, one of them had scratched and left me with ball in hand and a pocket hanger on the eight. I sensed they wanted play again but only if it was quick game between the two of them. So it was no-brainer for me to give them the table. I went back to the main area to get some more quarters and another beer. I went back in to play some pinball and to take a few snaps of the couple playing. Soon the girl had had enough but the guy agreed to play me.

By then some of their friends had shown up. And so, perhaps wanting to show off, I obnoxiously said I would bank the eight. In doing so, I had to pass up a couple easy straight-in shots on the eight. I tried to play those safe, until he missed a shot and left me with a risky cross-corner bank. I decided to go for it but the cue ball double kissed the eight and both balls, laughingly, went into the same side pocket. Loss of game for me and a good reason to head home.

Below I've included one of the daytime shots from my initial visit. As you can see, it's an attractive space with a skylight feel not unlike Toad Hall. Not surprisingly, it's a little tight in some areas but not too bad at all. Considering the abundance of all that glass, I suspect the table will see abnormally high shifts in room temperature and humidity throughout the course of a year. I don't envision the table ever getting moved because of a private party or live music shows. So it seems to be nicely achored into its space. There is a heater hanging from the ceiling so I would imagine that would keep it bearable. If anything, I could see them having to close the back room down if the temps dip below zero.

The biggest blow, for a cheapskate like me, is the $1.50/rack and $6.00/Stella combination, as opposed to Sophie's prices of $1.00 and $4.50, comparatively. You see, that's the most brilliant part of playing at Sophie's, that you keep getting two quarters back as change so you rarely have to make a trip to the bar solely to get quarters. On top of that, when you want quarters at Sixth Ward (or Lucky Jack's and Whiskey Ward for that matter) you're pretty much forced to fork over three dollars worth. I know, this is about as nitpicky as you can get. But I like my beer cheap and my pool cheaper. In the end, I sense there'll be some temptation for me to step into The Sixth Ward for a nightcapper and check in on the action from time to time.