If you spent any time east of Union Square from the 1930s to the early 1990s, you might remember Julian’s, one of the last of New York’s dark and smoky billiards halls. It ended its run on the second floor of the old Palladium building in 1991.
Ephemeral New York has celebrated Julian’s before, where (mostly) men and teenage boys shot pool and played hooky from work and life. But these noir-ish 1938 photos of Julian’s are another reason to bring it back again.
Reginald Marsh shot these images. He’s better known as an artist of the 1920s to 1940s who was drawn to the city’s seedy underbelly along the Bowery, at Times Square, and on Coney Island.
But he took a series of photos in the 1930s along 14th Street as well, capturing Depression-era New York’s grit, glamour, and many forgotten men.
A long shadowy staircase leading to the second floor entrance, the electric sign with “ladies invited” underneath, the ad for table tennis, the barber pole advertising a cut and shave to the left . . . these photos are an invitation to 1930s New York City. (Above photo, Julian’s in the 1980s).
[First and second images: MCNY: 90.36.2.30.1A; 90.36.2.30.1C. Third image: Warehouse magazine]
Tags: Billiards Rooms New York City, Julian Billiards Academy, Julian Pool Hall 14th Street, Julian's Billiards 14th Street, Reginald Marsh 14th Street, Union Square 1930s
Ephemeral New York 
May 21, 2018 at 6:45 am |
Oh I remember this place, dark, seedy and you kept a low profile if you knew what was good for you.
May 21, 2018 at 8:17 am |
😡This is the first post you’ve written that has made me angry! Lol. I once went out of my way to meet my boyfriend downtown & he cut our meeting short to go “play pool on 14th St.” blocks away … the only thing I ever heard this place called. ‘The 14th St pool hall’ (or room etc.).
Did it still have the name Julian’s in the 80s?
What’s really astonishing is the boy in the suit AND hat. He can’t be more than twelve. Was that a norm then? I have never seen a child in a hat like this. It’s like Dicken’s description of the Artful Dodger in the novel. Wearing men’s clothing…
May 21, 2018 at 9:04 am |
Reblogged this on Intellicooking.
May 21, 2018 at 10:35 am |
Loved Julian’s. The original Paladium was a great concert venue as well.
May 21, 2018 at 10:44 am |
That stairwell was scary and smelly. There were great windows that looked out over 14th St.
May 21, 2018 at 2:26 pm |
I went to high school at Stuyvesant on 15th street in the 80s ,we used to cut school and hang out at Julians and play pool,it was full of hoodlums, I think it was a tradition, we also went to the palladium at night. Ben gazzarra also went to my high school he must have hung at Julians too and James Cagney was another alumni of Stuyvesant but Julians was after his time he graduated in 1908
May 21, 2018 at 3:42 pm |
The boyfriend I mentioned in my above comment went to Stuyvesant too. (In the late 70s). I guess it was a Stuyvesant thing. Or as this was in the 80s also – he was one of the “hoodlums” you saw 😂
May 22, 2018 at 12:27 am
I went to SHS in the late 1970s and vaguely remember this place. I think it was on the block that also held Luchows, which is now an NYU dorm, like most of Greenwich Village.
Yes, Cagney went to SHS, and wrote in his memoirs that he learned to fight there. At that time the school was more of an industrial school…it had a forge shop and a crane to bring in metal for said shop.
Other actors who went there include Paul Reiser, Ron Silver, Tim Robbins, and Lucy Liu.
However, I was more pleased, when people would tell me that some famous or middling actor went to their high school, I could look them in the eye and say, “My high school generated four Nobel Laureates.” That, along with Brian Greene and Lisa Randall, both from my graduating class, as well as AG Eric Holder, usually silenced people who bragged about having Patrick Duffy go to their school….
May 22, 2018 at 5:06 am
So this thread is basically a high school reunion. Did you graduate in 1979? With my terrible boyfriend? Next I will find out you were best friends.
Thanks for the impressive list of actors. My HS in CT had quite a lot of people that polished awards over the years. I happen to have loathed my time there though; so I’m not going to count them. You win by default!🍾⭐️👑
Very interesting about the crane & metal!
May 22, 2018 at 11:18 pm
I was in the class of 1980, a year behind you. Tim Robbins was in an earlier class. Supposedly Adam Horowitz, the Beastie Boy, was in my class, but I have no idea.
The only other member of my class besides Lisa Randall and Brian Greene who gained fame was Daniel Steinberg, who became Executive Secretary of the Board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He was at a breakfast meeting in top of the Towers on 9/11, and was killed. He is my example when people tell me that Jews were “warned” of the horror and were able to escape.
May 21, 2018 at 3:47 pm |
I never knew James Cagney went there. Thanks. I thought he was from Yorkville; so assumed he went to school uptown. Was it a science & math satellite school in 1908? Did the City have those then?
January 23, 2021 at 11:22 pm
No, the school has never had a satellite operation in its history.
Sorry about the delay in answering.
February 12, 2022 at 8:26 am |
Julian’s was always warm in the winter. Up the stairs and into the cigar smoke filled hall. Best billiards hall of all time. Nothing compares to the real thing. There were three tight pocket tables, numbered 3, 13 and 23. I gravitated to table 13, nearly always. There were great snooker tables, surrounded by reverence, as the old time masters outplayed one another for position. Many a hustler was made at Julian’s. All you had to do was spend enough time there and the hustle pros would school you in all aspects of the game. Stance, grip and bridge. Follow through, execution. Practice, practice, practice. Always play at least for the time on the light because you have to play for something to make it mean anything. Gambling wasn’t allowed and everyone gambled. I knew a number of guys that we grew up with that became excellent shooters strictly because they were at the pool hall daily. They’d play nine ball all day. Nine ball quickly becomes money ball. And the hustle is everything. There was one old timer that taught me enough game that I could go around the city and hold bar room tables all night, never losing. Playing for drinks. I’d have drinks lined up along the bar. There were great bar pool tournaments and I would enter them and again play for drinks and hold the table mostly to the end. Crazy days. But Julian’s was something special. There was so much left on those tables. So many ghosts doing the nine ball run and dancing round the rails. I loved that place. My time there at the beginning of the 1980s was the best.
May 21, 2018 at 4:37 pm |
There were two entrances to Julian’s: right by the Academy of Music (your first pic) and also a larger and bigger one near 3rd Ave (on the left of the third pic), which also led downstairs to two or three bowling lanes. Was the best place in NYC to cut school in the early 1960s hang out and shoot pool.
May 21, 2018 at 8:05 pm |
Hi Mick, always good to get your insight on the comments board!
May 24, 2018 at 4:04 pm |
Glad to hear from you again Mick, miss your first hand knowledge of NYC.
May 25, 2018 at 12:25 pm
Thanks Tom B, I miss you all too, especially Ephemeral NY, no matter where I go the memory of old NY will always draw me back.
May 25, 2018 at 1:56 pm
Thank you Mick! You’re one of the early readers and it’s great to still hear your stories and insight.
May 21, 2018 at 9:33 pm |
Hi,
As a 1970s Stuyvesant student; I also made visits to Julian’s. One thing that is so far unmentioned is that Julian’s had perhaps New York’s most disgusting men’s room. I (almost) wish I had a photo to illustrate the fact.
May 22, 2018 at 12:29 am |
Force Tube Avenue! One of my favorite street names in New York! I once walked it to see it. It has one house on it. Was that yours?
It leads from the reservoir to Conduit Avenue/Boulevard. It draws the name from the pipe from the reservoir to the conduit.
May 22, 2018 at 8:11 am
A street name that sounds like a medical procedure.
Was Tim Robbins in class of 79?
May 23, 2018 at 1:18 am |
Thanks for making me a year younger David 🙂
The bad pool playing boyfriend was class of 79. I graduated a year earlier in another school.
I have one of those degrees of separation from the Beastie Boys:
My brother (bass player) >
Kate Schellenbach (sp?) (drummer in band w/ my brother – after playing drums w/ Beastie Boys) >
Beastie Boys
May 23, 2018 at 1:35 am |
The only pleasant memories I have of SHS are learning to write in Frank McCourt’s Creative Writing class — he remained one of my job references until his death in 2003 and his letter to the New School for Social Research in 1999 helped me get into their MFA Creative Writing program — and the time one of my female classmates showed up in a white tank top and no brassiere, leaned over in the cafeteria, and afforded me my first look at that portion of female anatomy.
Other than that, it was an absolute bloody misery — and not the usual “depressed teenager” misery. It’s stuff I can’t talk about in public and don’t want to go into.
Needless to say, I don’t go to reunions. And the girl who afforded me that look had a bevy of boyfriends who were very protective of their girlfriend-sharing plan.
May 23, 2018 at 1:42 am
Frank McCourt taught at Stuyvesant?!
Wow. Lucky you.
I thought he taught at Brooklyn College (?).
He’s this: 🌞🌙⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
May 23, 2018 at 1:47 am
*I went to Parsons/New School. Frank McCourt 💌
May 23, 2018 at 11:30 pm
No, he taught first at McKee Vocational on Staten Island, then at Seward Park, and then at SHS, for decades, where he retired.
He was the first of my four writing mentors, reading pieces of what became “Angela’s Ashes” in writing class. He taught me about observation.
Second was Walter Lord, the great historian. I learned from reading him about the importance of time and studying human behavior under stress and in abnormal circumstances, which is what his books are about.
Third were my MFA Instructors at the New School, for a variety of lessons.
Fourth was Roger Clemens, who completed my writing epiphany by teaching me that writing IS pitching, and ever since, I have seen writing that way. Learned that from listening to and watching him pitch for the Yankees in 1999.
May 24, 2018 at 7:01 am
Well we all have to know if any of those gents played pool at Julian’s now. Especially Frank McCourt.
May 25, 2018 at 12:00 am
He doesn’t mention shooting pool in his books or ever talked about it in school.
May 25, 2018 at 7:44 am
Disappointing – I was hoping for stories about Frank McCourt taking you to play pool.
May 25, 2018 at 11:31 pm
It didn’t work like that…
May 23, 2018 at 5:25 pm |
Considering the gentrification that has gone on in NYC over the last 10 years; I am surprised how dicey the area east of Union Square remains
May 29, 2018 at 1:56 am |
I shot pool at Julian’s a few times in the 80s. It looked every bit the throwback to the 1900s that it was.That was the only place I ever went that actually had billiards tables, all original equipment. It seemed to me the hobos from the Bowery spent their days here, it definitely had a certain ‘flop house’ feel to it for lack of better verbiage.
March 4, 2019 at 6:24 am |
[…] recall another on East 14th Street just east of Union Square, which I think limped along after the Palladium closed and finally became a pizza parlor in the […]
December 15, 2019 at 12:30 am |
I have a photo of Julian Billiards from 1978. by the photographer Janice Jablon. Is there a monetary value?
December 15, 2019 at 6:42 pm |
I’m not sure, I think you’d have to get it appraised. I’d be interested in seeing it though, if you want to email it to me at ephemeralnewyork at gmail.
March 3, 2020 at 10:57 pm |
I visited Julian’s in 1987 and was very aware even at that time that this was quite an antique, singular and seedy space and very much a time capsule from, I thought at least, the 1940’s. The tables were old Brunswick’s in the art deco style and there was a very specific smell to the place that I can’t describe now but it was very particular to the place. You could pick up the musty and sad scent as soon as you started up either set of steep stairs that led up to opposing ends of the massive space. There were not only standard sized billiard tables but also a few massive pocket-less carom billiard tables towards the back .I had thought then that I’d like to take a picture of the place but I didn’t think then then that the habitues there would take kindly to having their photograph taken. I did once take a French girl who was visiting up there just to give her a quick look at
an old time New York scene that I knew was rare but didn’t think then was soon to be gone.
September 30, 2022 at 2:35 am |
New York pool halls were special, and I got to play two of the best of them, Ames and Julians. There were others for sure, but these stand out for me as the best of the best. Ames was where they shot The Hustler, and it was perfect. Open 24 hours, great tables, great old time atmosphere, hustlers everywhere. I think it closed in 1966. Julian’s had something special about it as well, an attitude that also warned you of the hustlers in the room. It was also old school. Just two great, never to be seen again, NYC haunts.
September 30, 2022 at 3:01 pm |
I don’t know about the Ames, but I’m going to look it up and possibly do a future post! Thanks for your comment.
September 16, 2023 at 2:35 am
Ames was located right on Times Square at 44th st, but you couldn’t see it because it was actually located inside the Claridge Hotel, but Ames had its own entrance on 44th st. There was a neon sign in each 2nd floor window on 44th St (as shown in The Hustler after the first big match when they retire to the hotel room across the street and the camera pans out the window), and another neon sign at the corner of 44th and Times Square. Of course the Claridge Hotel was the hotel with the big Camel smoking sign on Times square with the real smoke coming out. The truly great thing about Ames was its quality as a movie set. They literally didn’t have to change a thing for the movie, it was the epitome of the old time pool hall, much more so than Julians, which had a bit more modern look due to bigger windows and a bit more colorful interior. I was 14 when I first went into Ames, it was the first place I went after we moved from Ohio to Westchester County in 1964, and I took the subway down to the City with my father as he was going to work, and I said see ya and I was off to see where they had shot The Hustler! I had grown up shooting pool in the small town of Marysville Ohio and at 14 I already knew my way around a pool hall. I got there, walked up the steps, and walked inside. It was just like the movie! Even the guy in the cage who gave you the balls looked the same! It was awesome. I asked which table was THE table they played on and with a smile (the guy couldn’t believe how young I was) he pointed to it and I played all morning on the same table they shot the movie on. I recall returning once or twice more that summer and that was my Ames experience, something I wouldn’t trade for anything. And wouldn’t you know it, just a matter of about a year or so later it was all demolished, gone forever. If you want to get in touch, I have some old photos of Ames that you could use for your article.
September 15, 2023 at 6:51 pm |
I played some pool in Smileys Pool Room in Greenpoint, Brooklyn…Did pretty good with 9 ball, Pill Pool, 8 ball and all the rest, Sunday at the main # 1 table was the money day. One rainy evening (or early morning I was half loaded) in 1957 I wandered into Julians on 14th St. On me I had $103.00 I left when the Sun came up with car fare to catch the subway at Union Square to get back to brooklyn.
March 5, 2024 at 3:50 pm |
Was that Smiley’s on the corner of Graham & Richardson? My older brother used to hustle the tables throughout Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Queens during the late ’50s through the mid ’60s.
March 5, 2024 at 1:47 pm |
I was a complete addict to Juliens, I played Georgie “The Greek” for money. Of course I lost, but you must play people better than you to learn anything. I would be on my way to school at the High School of Music and Art, circa 1959, and I would get off after on stop and be at Juliens when the guy was opening it at 8:00 am. My mom was always calling, if I heard the phone ring I would stop playing and wait for them to call out my name! I was in absolute total thrall to the Damon Runyon scene, I hung out with the other kids who wore hats.