Capitol Diner
| Capitol Diner | |||
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| National Register of Historic Places | |||
 The Capitol Diner in 2007 |
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| location | Lynn , Massachusetts , United States | ||
| Coordinates | 42 ° 27 '47.6 " N , 70 ° 56' 39.8" W | ||
| surface | 176.5 m² | ||
| Built | 1928 | ||
| architect | Brill / Wason Company | ||
| Architectural style | Rail Car Diner | ||
| NRHP number | 99001121 | ||
| The NRHP added | September 22, 1999 | ||
The Capitol Diner is a 1928-built Diner in Lynn in the state of Massachusetts of the United States . It is one of the so-called "rail car" dinners, since it is integrated into a railroad car , and was entered on the National Register of Historic Places on September 22, 1999 as part of the Multiple Property Submission Diners of Massachusetts MPS .
description
The 1928 built Capitol Diner is a well-preserved example of the type of "Rail Car" -Diners in Massachusetts, so for restaurants in a railway car ( English rail car ) - or, more precisely in a passenger car - were integrated. Manufactured in Springfield by Wason Manufacturing Company as a subsidiary of JG Brill Company, it is located in the city's business center near City Hall and Massachusetts Route 1A .
The diner has a monitor roof with an upper balcony , but fans are now installed in the window openings. It has two entrances that lead inside at the furthest points of the car and stands on a brick foundation dating from the 1930s. However, only the south entrance is open to the public, the non-original awning of which can be removed at any time and therefore does not impair the historical integrity. The outer walls are clad with hot-dip galvanized steel painted red , the roof is covered with sheet metal . The lettering "Capitol Diner" is located on both long sides. At the north-west rear is a one-story brick extension built in the 1930s, which houses the kitchen.
In the interior, a bar runs along the entire length of the room, with space for 18 stools clad with enamel and covered with red PVC , which are connected by a brass foot bar . The work areas behind the counter are not original and were installed as part of a renovation after a fire in 1978. Seating is arranged along the north-east wall, the floor consists of square, terracotta-colored tiles. The walls and the ceiling are covered with white formica .
Historical meaning
The Capitol Diner is a major example of classic railroad car-inspired diner design in Massachusetts and the only surviving Brill / Wason diner in the state. It is one of the oldest operating diners in Massachusetts and the only one remaining in Lynn. It has been closely associated with the Fennell family since 1939, who bought it at that time and still operate it today.
As early as 1898, a so-called lunch wagon stood at the position of the Capitol Diner , a horse-drawn wagon from which food and drinks were sold. The trapezoidal plot of land on which the diner stands today was laid down in 1913 when the tracks on the Boston and Maine Railroad were laid. In 1928 Ernest A. Goodwin ran the first diner in the restaurant car that still exists today; 1939 he took over George E. Fennell and named the restaurant in Capitol Diner to as diagonally opposite the now non-existent cinema Capitol Theater was located. The Capitol Diner attracted many customers due to its location near the cinema and the city's commercial center. In 1948, George's nephew Bernard J. "Buddy" Fennell took over the diner and passed the business on to his son Robert "Bobby" Fennell in the late 1960s, who runs it to this day and has been a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives since 1994 .
After a fire in 1978, the diner had to be renovated, but the external appearance and the historical layout of the interior were preserved. The monitor roof is characteristic of the diners of the late 1920s and early 1930s in Massachusetts and was modeled on the typical railroad and tram cars from that time. The production of this type of diner was therefore a logical extension of the business field of manufacturers of railways and trams, which also included the JG Brill Company in Philadelphia , which began selling rail car dinners in 1927. The restaurant trolleys were produced by subsidiaries in Springfield, Massachusetts and Cleveland, Ohio . The Brill subsidiary Wason Manufacturing Company originally specialized in the manufacture of railroad cars, trams, automobile bodies, motor boats and airplanes, but had to close in 1932 despite the expansion to include the diner business.
See also
literature
- Kathleen Kelly Broomer, Betsy Friedberg: National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. (PDF) National Park Service , July 1999, accessed on July 15, 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 cf. Broomer / Friedberg, p. 5.
- ↑ a b cf. Broomer / Friedberg, p. 6.
- ↑ cf. Broomer / Friedberg, p. 7.