May 2nd 1915 – The Washington Herald
Suffragists’ Lunch Wagon Campaign
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Clearview Diner – Mount Joy, PA
The Clearview started out life as a small, five bay 1948 Paramount. It was pretty standard for a Paramount built diner of the late 1940s, which is to say it was extraordinary- with a sensuously curved roofline and strong vertical elements. From the postcard, it’s hard to say what the exterior finish is, but I would guess probably vertically ribbed stainless. It had a great rooftop neon, which, in true 1940s form read “steaks, chops, hamburgers”. You don’t see nearly enough Steaks and Chops being advertised these days. For other ’40s Paramount built diners along similar lines, allow me to direct you to: “Rajun Cajun” of Hartford, CT, a six-bay model from 1950, to the Vale-Rio Diner, another 1948 model.
In 1954, the diner was remodeled and drastically enlarged, adding three bays to the left side and bumping a dining room back quite a ways. Business must have been good! In keeping with this modernization, curved glass supplanted glass brick on the corners. A new, clock topped vestibule was added, and a parapet was added to the curvy monitor roof to give the entire place a continuous, 1954 modern roof line. The emphasis of the design was changed to the horizontal. The diner was topped off with metal awnings and a new freestanding neon, though the steaks-chops rooftop piece remained for at least a little while longer.
Later on, the “Diner” name was dropped, replaced with “The Clearview Dining Room and Coffee Shop”. See Richard J.S. Gutman’s chapter on the move away from the “diner” name in the 1960s in his book “The American Diner Then and Now”. Despite the name and neon changes, the exterior looks to have remained in-tact, with the addition of Pennsylvania Dutch Hex Signs.
In what I’m guessing was the 1960s, the diner was enlarged and remodeled again, with a mid-century modern coffee shop-style vestibule put up along the entire length of the original 1948 section of the diner. Orange tile, floor to ceiling glass, modernist lettering.
Later on, the “Diner” was reintroduced into the name of the Clearview, probably coinciding with the cultural “re-discovery” of the diner in the 1990s. It changed names to the Tic-Tac diner in 2009, but that chapter in its life was short lived. By 2012, the diner had been stuccoed over, painted, and is now known as Babbo’s Italian Grill. A photo of the diner in its current state can be seen on the Diners of Pennsylvania facebook page.
As the Tic Tac Diner
Photo by Casey Kreider
LancasterOnline.com article
Jimmy’s Diner No. 1 – Auburn, Maine
You may remember my post of Jimmy’s Diner a few months ago, tracing postcard images of it through the decades. Now I have proper pictures of the place. Well- kind of. Somewhere underneath all of what’s there now still lies an early 1930s diner of indeterminate manufacture. It’s been covered since the ’60s and really and truly covered since the ’80s or so. The gas station is still there, too, but like the diner, it’s sprouted additions every which way that render the entire complex almost unrecognizable. Unfortunately, all the windows are boarded over so no interior shots / no way to identify the builder of the diner (on site, Mor-Lan, one of the big name companies). I would assume, however, that when they re-did the exterior for the last, and most drastic time, that whatever was left of the interior was obliterated.
In these first two pictures, the location of the original door is still visible, along with the later (’50s/’60s) horizontal windows, which enlarged the original ’30s style tall narrow ones. The roof and porch really do a lot to disguise the diner lineage of the building.
The back-side of the diner portion of Jimmy’s. Ignore, if you will, the roof and tack-on chimney, and this gives you a sense of the size of the diner.
Dead signage
The former gas station portion of the complex.
Deepwater Diner remodel
“Great architecture has only two natural enemies: water and stupid men.” – Richard Nickel
Above photo by Spencer Stewart, 2007
Photo copyright Michael G. Stewart
455 Shell Rd
Penns Grove, NJ 08069
Tom’s Diner – Ledgewood, NJ
This old Silk City was used as a location for Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” music video. It now sits empty, in poor condition.
Great freestanding neon
Kitchen addition is narrower than the diner.
My girlfriend, Anna and me in front of the diner.
Peeling Paint. Torn Sign.
The specials are still displayed.
Puddles of water, algae and mold
Rippowam Grill- Stamford, CT
I picked this up the other day at an antique shop and thought you all might appreciate a decent quality version of it up on the blog. Enjoy!
Drive to Halifax- Day One
The West Shore Diner of Lemoyne, PA. After a 4:30 start time, we hit the West Shore Diner. We were the only non-regulars at the place at the time. It’s had a recent re-paint, this time in blue. Here are some older shots.
. It’s a very early Silk City.
Interior of the West Shore Diner
Midway Motor Inn Motel.
Byram Diner – Stanhope, NJ.
Tom’s Diner. New Jersey.
Cliff’s Dairy Maid – Ledgewood, NJ
Yankee Diner – Charlton, MA
Drive In – Leicester, MA
Drive In – Leicester, MA
Lee’s Diner – York, PA
Lee’s Diner is a 1951 Mountain View, serial 322. While at first glance it looks pretty well original, with two great freestanding neon signs. Closer inspection reveals an interesting series of additions and alterations. A dining room was bumped out the left hand side of the diner some years ago. The side stainless was removed at that point and put on the front wall to create an original looking facade. The left hand side is stucco or something of that sort, shaped and painted to match the stainless. The original vestibule wasn’t much bigger than a telephone booth, and since my last visit has been enlarged. A similar trick was pulled on the vestibule, with the original stainless used to make a several-foot enlargement look more or less original.
Nice old Seeburg Consolettes.
Hot Meatloaf sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy.
The interior of the diner is still very original, with the exception of replacement booths.
Ka-Chunk.
Mountain View builder’s tag.
Inlaid “P.” in the terrazzo floor.
The older of the two neon signs.
Diner Tags
The manufacturers of factory built diners marked their product with builders tags, just like the badge on a car or a kitchen appliance. I’ll be adding more as I go through my photo archives, but if you have any variants or builders from your travels or collections that you’d like to share, I’d love to see them!
Levoy Theatre – Millville, NJ
Unfortunately, this grand old theater collapsed earlier this year.
Here are some shots I took of it back in June of 2006.
Diner Hunter 