When the 1920s theater at 138 East 14th Street bit the dust in 1997, more was lost than just the Palladium nightclub, which had occupied the space in the 1980s.
On the second floor was the cavernous Julian Billiard Academy, run since 1933 by the Julian family but operating as a pool hall since 1916. Until Julian’s shut its doors in 1991, it was New York’s oldest billiards room and once one of hundreds across the city.
“Old school” is the way ex-customers describe it. Like the rest of this stretch of East 14th Street, it was slightly seedy but safe, attracting “students, actors, businessmen, and bums” and providing “safe harbor at most hours of the night and morning.”
What brought it down? High rent, of course. According to a New York Times article, it went from $300 a month in 1933 to $6,000 in 1987.
”I don’t know what I will do when my lease is up in four years,” the 53-year-old owner [Ron (Julian) Hickers] said as he looked out the window at a luxury apartment building rising across East 14th Street. ”I may just hang it up and go to Florida.”
Today, 138 East 14th Street is the site of NYU’s Palladium Hall dorm.
Here’s a link to a terrific grunge-era photo of the entrance of Julian’s, from a blog called The Devil Wears.
[Top photo: Courtesy Warehouse Magazine]
Tags: East 14th Street NYC, East Village in the 1980s, Julian Billiard Academy, Julian's Pool Hall, old nightclubs NYC, old pool halls NYC, Palladium nightclub
December 12, 2012 at 1:35 am |
This building is another of the destruction of NYC culture by NYU (the Bottom Line, e.g.), whose pitch to potential students is how downtown is full of culture.
Before it was called the Palladium, the disco, the building was for years the Academy of Music, home to the Stones first US tour in 1965, as well as The Band, Kiss, Iggy Pop, Blue Oyster Cult and others – as well as Julian’s.
Instead of pool at Julian’s, NYU students prefer beer pong, to the detriment of downtown.
December 12, 2012 at 4:42 am |
“Seedy but safe” is an apt description. Went there a few times back in the 80s and most of the pool & snooker tables looked like they were original.
December 12, 2012 at 8:17 am |
Julian’s pool hall was always there. I played in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, and I wasn’t a very good pool player but at least it was a place to go when you had nowhere in the big city to go to. I wonder where losers end going up nowadays?
December 12, 2012 at 10:03 am |
I just remembered at the basement level at the bottom of Julian’s stairway was a tiny bowling alley 3 or 4 lanes. This was in the early 1960s and they had these black guys setting up the pins by hand, of course, some smart aleck Italian Mafia wannabe would ‘accidentally’ toss his bowling ball at the black guys, that would set the up the dago wops into hoots and hollers. I did watch them but never participated. Oh, the things you see at night… Gone forever…
December 12, 2012 at 2:05 pm |
The Men’s room at Julian’s in the ’70s was one of, if not the, most disgusting public restrooms in New York. In the ’70s, that was saying a lot.
December 12, 2012 at 2:29 pm |
It was gross but not that bad, you had to try Clancy’s Bar right across the street at 14th & Irving Place, for the vomiting pits, ugh! Went in once up the stairs and never went back, that place would have you renounce alcohol and find religion very fast. Again, ugh!
December 12, 2012 at 2:50 pm |
[...] The site of NYU’s Palladium Hall was once home to “the cavernous Julian Billiard Academy, run since 1933 by the Julian family but operating as a pool hall since 1916. Until Julian’s shut its doors in 1991, it was New York’s oldest billiards room and once one of hundreds across the city.” [Ephemeral NY] [...]
December 12, 2012 at 8:43 pm |
Julian’s was a fine place. If someone considered it seedy, that someone probably had misgivings about all of 14th Street. (Though I must concede that at a time in my youth, 14th Street and Third Avenue was indeed a corner to be on one’s toes, if not necessarily on one’s guard.)
One might have called Julian’s grubby, or one could consider that it had acquired a patina over the years. Some might have considered many of its regulars lowlifes, but those characters were a part of what makes this city so diverse and vibrant.
Have I given myself away — that I really miss Julian’s?
(By the way — thanks, Mick. I couldn’t remember the name Clancy’s. I had more than a few cold ones there before shows at the Academy of Music.)
December 12, 2012 at 9:18 pm |
[...] Remembering Julian’s on East 14th Street (Ephemeral New York) [...]
December 13, 2012 at 6:22 pm |
also, this was where The Clash’s iconic cover shot for “London Calling” was taken (Paul Simonon smashing his bass)…a shame. NYU needs to slow the f*#%k down.
December 14, 2012 at 12:52 pm |
Ahh…. learned to play pool there when I first moved to NYC; the Clash, Elvis Costello at the Palladium…
Julians was also where The Hustler was filmed, so I can always relive it.
December 14, 2012 at 1:02 pm |
I’ve always known that The Hustler was filmed at McGir’s Poolhall on 8th Avenue in the 50ths, was exactly like it was in the film.
December 17, 2012 at 8:36 pm |
For those of you who really miss certain things about NYC, like the Palladium mural, a before and after photo is here: http://www.rhythmism.com/forum/showthread.php?t=72773
December 17, 2012 at 8:38 pm |
Did I mention I’m one of those people?