Al Mac's diner restaurant
| Al Mac's diner restaurant | |||
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| National Register of Historic Places | |||
 Al Mac's in 2012 |
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| location | Fall River , Massachusetts , United States | ||
| Coordinates | 41 ° 42 '58.3 " N , 71 ° 9' 14.2" W | ||
| Built | 1953 | ||
| architect | DeRaffele Manufacturing Company | ||
| Architectural style | Stainless steel diner | ||
| NRHP number | 99001119 | ||
| The NRHP added | December 20, 1999 | ||
The Al Mac's Diner-Restaurant is a 1953-built Diner in Fall River in the state of Massachusetts of the United States . It is one of the so-called "stainless steel" dinners, as it is clad with elements made of stainless steel, and was entered on December 20, 1999 as part of the Multiple Property Submission Diners of Massachusetts MPS in the National Register of Historic Places .
description
Al Mac's is the oldest of four Massachusetts diners built by the DeRaffele Manufacturing Company in New Rochelle , New York . It is a well-preserved example from the era of the “stainless steel” dinners in the 1950s. The restaurant is located one mile outside of the city center within a mall off Massachusetts Route 138 .
The dinner was in a steel frame built with elements from stainless steel ( English stainless steel clad) that gave this building type his name. Additional petrol-colored enamel elements were integrated as horizontal and vertical accents. The low hipped roof is rounded, and the covered, protruding entrance area in the middle of the front is a typical feature of the diners of this era. The flanged pilasters between the windows serve both as decoration and as rain gutters. On the east rear is the one-story kitchen in a separate part of the building, presumably added in the 1990s, which, however, does not affect the overall appearance of the diner.
Inside, to the left of the entrance area, is the counter, around which 20 steel stools are arranged. There are seats along the west and south sides and partly on the east side. Both the counter and the boundaries of the seating areas are made of formica , the seats are covered with PVC and the floor is made of terrazzo . The original color scheme of salmon and pale green can still be found in the roof area today. In the mid-1970s, the diner was moved from its original location to its current position to make way for the Bicentennial Park that is located there today . In the 1990s it was rotated 90 degrees and has been showing its entrance on Davol Street ever since.
Historical meaning
The diner is named after Allen J. McDermott, who owned several diners and restaurants in Fall River and continued a family business that had existed since the 1910s with the McDermott Lunch Company, founded in 1926. Al Mac's orientation as a diner restaurant - as opposed to the term diner - reflects the endeavors of the industry in the 1950s to create a restaurant-like atmosphere. The relocation in the 1970s and the later rotation at the new location are typical examples of the mobility of the diners, which can be adjusted to new conditions with comparatively little effort.
Al Mac's was the last new diner McDermott bought before he retired in 1967. The development of the area around Davol Street into an industrial and commercial area began even before the Second World War and led to the settlement of a number of companies whose employees formed the diner's customer base.
After the diner had to close in 2012 due to economic difficulties, it was reopened under new management in 2013 after extensive renovations.
See also
literature
- Kathleen Kelly Broomer, Betsy Friedberg: National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. ( PDF ) National Park Service , July 1999, accessed on July 8, 2016 (English, accessible via the "NR" button).
- Richard Gutman: American diner then and now . Harper Perennial, New York 1993, ISBN 978-0-06-096956-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ National Register Information System . In: National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service . Retrieved November 2, 2013.
- ↑ a b c cf. Broomer / Friedberg, p. 5.
- ↑ cf. Broomer / Friedberg, p. 6.
- ↑ cf. Broomer / Friedberg, p. 7.
- ^ Phil Devitt: Al Mac's Diner closes after 102 years. In: southcoasttoday.com. Local Media Group, August 16, 2012, accessed July 8, 2016 .
- ^ Will Richmond: Al Mac's Diner closes. In: The Herald News. Gatehouse Media, Inc., July 23, 2012, accessed July 8, 2016 .
- ^ Gail Ciampa: Dining Out: New life for a retro gem in Fall River. In: Providence Journal. Gatehouse Media, LLC, July 24, 2013, accessed July 8, 2016 .