Racked: 10 Abandoned Pool, Billiard & Snooker Parlors

No doubt these abandoned billiard parlors & snooker halls are in trouble… trouble with a capital “T” and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for pool!

billiards_pool_inala_2

billiards_pool_inala_3

The Thien Tien pool hall in Inala, Australia may have had a “grand” opening but it seems the good times didn’t last for long. Flickr user Feeeeeeee (burntfeather) photo-documented both the inside and the outside of the now-decrepit snooker hall on October 28th of 2012 and by the looks of it, vandals and graffiti artists have had plenty of time to rack, er, wreck the facility.

billiards_pool_inala_5

billiards_pool_inala_4

Inala, a suburb of Brisbane in Queensland, was established after the Second World War in response to a severe housing crisis. Homes and accompanying commercial/recreational buildings were constructed of local materials and reinforced concrete, which in the case of the Thien Tien pool hall resulted in some very attractive buildings. It’s a pity the vibrant, multicultural population of today’s Inala isn’t able to relaunch or repurpose this cool abandoned pool hall.

Scott's_Pool_Hall_Middlegrove

You’d have to go to George Costanza’s old bedroom at his parents’ house in Queens to find a pool parlor smaller than Scott’s Pool Hall in Middlegrove, Illinois. The image above is part of DOCUMERICA: The Environmental Protection Agency’s Program to Photographically Document Subjects of Environmental Concern. Perhaps the copious clouds of cigarette smoke emitted by countless pool sharks over the decades turned Scott’s into a Superfund site.

Wheaton_and_Hollis_Hotel_&_Pool_Hall_Bodie_1

pool hall, Bodie State Park

Check out these timeless shots of the abandoned Wheaton and Hollis Hotel & Pool Hall in Bodie, California – and dig that funky pool table! We say “timeless” because like most of Bodie’s buildings, the pool hall remains in a state of semi-suspended animation since the Mono County town officially became Bodie State Historic Park in 1962.

abandoned_pool_table_Russian_ship

According to the photographer, Flickr user Pigeoneyes.com, this is a single-table “pool room” on board an abandoned Russian ship. Presumably the table was equipped with a sophisticated gyroscopic balance system or games were only played when the waters were mirror-calm.