“I’m looking for a pool hall that used to be on 14^th street on the east side. I’m not sure what of its name. It was open at least as late as 1989, and it was next to a nightclub. Can you tell me the name of the hall?”

This was an interesting reference challenge. Normally when one is faced with a business name question, it’s as simple as heading to the yellow pages or reverse directory (also known as an address directory) for the time period in question. Without an exact address, however, using a reverse directory would be a cumbersome prospect, and without an exact date, searching the yellow pages for pool halls in New York could become an exercise in microfilm-searching annoyance. I decided to have fun with this one and give myself the extra challenge of limiting my sources to online databases.

I also learned a little about the history of billiards in New York: that pool as a leisure activity saw its heyday in the 1920s, with “hundreds of halls” in Manhattan, dwindling to 24 in 1961 and only 2 in early 1987. The sport saw a small resurgence in popularity in the late 1980s with the 1986 release of the movie “The Color of Money,” and as of November 1988 there were 6 halls in the borough.