Classic 211 Club succumbs to the march of progress in trendy Belltown
Monday, December 25, 2000
By P. HUTCHINSON
It's a violation of poolroom etiquette to go sentimental on anything, so regulars at the 211 Club just tightened their jaws yesterday and said, "See ya."
Then they went sappy anyway.
"I loved this place for so long," said a snooker player who goes by "Phred the Cook." "I don't know what I'll do with myself now that it's gone. I'm still in denial."
Last rites for the city's classiest poolroom concluded by late afternoon, Christmas Eve, when players unscrewed their cues, said their good-byes, then shuffled down the stairs and out to the streets of busy Belltown, where the new has overtaken the old.
R.I.P., 211.
Within a few months, the room will be reborn as yet another manifestation of Seattle's dizzying high-tech revolution. Some call it progress.
"I hate to see it get pushed out," said John Selivanoff, a Seattle native. "It's my favorite place to be."
For a few hours yesterday, the 211 Club jumped, as it had so many days in its storied past. Players, cue cases slung over shoulders, dropped by to pay their favorite joint a proper farewell. With every table in action, they huddled in threes and fours, laughing and smoking and shaking their heads.
"What a shame," said a guy named "Coach," a longshoreman with a passion for snooker. "Best place in town. Best players, too."
Players like Dan Louie, Seattle's finest. Or the incomparable Efran Reyes, whenever he passes through town. Or, in the old days, Harry Platis, lover of fast action and high stakes. Or the guy they call "Too Tall."
"Don't know why they call me that," Too Tall likes to say. "I'm only 5-17."
With the regulars gone and the party over, owner John Teerink dimmed the lights and locked the door on 104 years of Seattle billiards lore.
There was a day when every town had a room like this, where the smell is smoky and slightly boozy, the furnishings comfy but slightly seedy, the air tinged with excitement but slightly scary. And once you got to know it, and the people who hung there, it felt like home.
One by one, in town after town, these rooms have succumbed to the march. The 211 was among the last of its kind in the West.
Teerink might have saved his club had he been willing to compromise. Newer, corporate-run pool halls pump high-decibel music and feature banks of TVs and video games, and a large dose of ersatz nostalgia. No surprise they're packed with patrons, even if their equipment is cheesy and seldom maintained.
But Teerink wouldn't bend to the times. He insisted that his room be a temple, an authentic expression of how a poolroom used to be. And how it should be, by God, today.
In his joint, every table must roll true, every rail bounce straight. Tables must be covered in Simonis wool-blend cloth, imported from Belgium at triple the cost. House cues must be inspected regularly, tips replaced, shafts smoothed. Triangle chalk, of course, and the very best balls.
As Teerink sees it, the defining quality of a poolroom is its cast of characters. In that regard, the 211 was rich beyond measure.
There was Gary Shelley, "a space case," as Teerink remembered him, "who would come in and drink coffee, always quiet, but this became his home. He was an oddball who fit right in." After he died, the club honored him with a table bearing his name.
Then there was "Slow Ball Harry."
"He was old when I got here and he survived another 20 years after that," Teerink said. "He was a Seattle guy who'd won a city championship back in the '30s. He finally got so he couldn't play anymore, so he'd sit on the rail and watch. He'd show his appreciation for a good shot by tapping a cue on the floor."
The pair were among the many pensioners who occupied nearby hotels, but found their home at the 211. They'd play cards or ride the rail, watching the players. Railbirds, they were called.
"They're all dead now," Teerink said. "Literally, some of them came in here to die. And they did."
The 211 joins such long-gone Seattle poolrooms as Brown & Hulens, Pope & Sibley's, Greenland's Recreation and Les Brainard's, all downtown fixtures in the early part of last century. The club emerged from a joint called Gilroy & Nefziger's, at 211 Union St.
Teerink, a top-flight, three-cushion billiards player (high run: 17), discovered the 211 Club in the early 1960s, and 10 years later bought shares in the corporation that owned it.
"I just fell in love, that's all there is to it," he recalled, Share by share, he acquired full ownership. "In all the years I've been here, I've only seen one fight."
To understand Teerink's affection for the place, consider the jam he faced 14 years ago. He'd lost his lease at the old location, a couple blocks away, but all he could find was a two-story walkup with leaky ceilings and sagging floors. Not the ideal setup for two-dozen tables of a ton or two each.
"We did all the work ourselves," he recalls. "The wiring, the plumbing, the painting, all of it."
That was the easy part.
To finance the move required $68,000 cash, up front, and a masterful stroke of domestic finesse. Teerink had to convince his wife, Betty, to sell their two-story Colonial home in Silver Lake, where they'd lived, quite comfortably, for many years.
"She doesn't even like pool," Teerink said. "Actually, she hates it."
Realizing her husband's pool jones was incurable, Betty Teerink agreed to sell the house to keep the 211 alive. Then came the tough sell: Would she care to live in the back of a poolroom?
So that's where they've been for the past 14 years: John with his love for the game, living just where he wants, and Betty with her love for John, willing to live behind a Belltown pool hall if that's what it takes.
The Teerinks will go south for the winter, then make some decisions. The club's equipment has been sold, piece by piece, mostly to regulars.
"Everybody says I can buy the stuff back if I ever open up again," Teerink says, with a hint that it just could happen. "That's pretty special that my customers would feel that way. Kind of gives you a lump . . ."
Late yesterday, he wasn't the only one with a lump, poolroom etiquette be damned.
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER