Chadwick Square Diner
| Chadwick Square Diner | |||
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| National Register of Historic Places | |||
 The Chadwick Square Diner in 2009 |
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| location | Worcester , Massachusetts , United States | ||
| Coordinates | 42 ° 16 '39.5 " N , 71 ° 48' 3.2" W | ||
| Built | 1930 | ||
| architect | Worcester Lunch Car Company | ||
| Architectural style | Rail Car Diner | ||
| NRHP number | 03001206 | ||
| The NRHP added | November 26, 2003 | ||
The Chadwick Square Diner (also Ralph's Chadwick Square Diner or Ralph's Rock Diner ) is a 1930 built diner in Worcester in the state of Massachusetts in the United States . It is one of the so-called "Rail-Car-Diners" because it is integrated into a railroad car and was registered on November 26, 2003 as part of the Multiple Property Submission Diners of Massachusetts MPS in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).
description
The Chadwick Square Diner was built in 1930 by the Worcester Lunch Car Company with build number # 660 . It connects to the rear of the Washburn and Moen Building # 7 within the Washburn and Moen North Works District , which is north of Worcester's business center and is now mixed-use. The diner was set up at this position in 1979 around the time the Historic District was entered into the NRHP, but was not included as part of the district.
The diner now serves as an extension of the two-story building; the premises are now operated as a combination of diner and night club . The diner is around 12 m long and 4.3 m wide. It consists of a wooden frame construction that is clad with enamel on the outside and has a monitor roof into which a long row of upper- storey windows is built, which can still be seen from inside and outside. Below the roof overhang on the two narrow sides are the entrances, which were structurally changed as part of the integration into the building, so that the northern one now serves as an emergency exit, while the southern one is the main entrance to the nightclub.
Inside, the diner is very well preserved and has a marble counter with 15 bar stools that stretches the entire length of the car. At the front there are six wooden tables with marble tops, each with four seats on wooden chairs. The original pale yellow tiles can still be seen on the counter and below the window. The brass foot bar on the counter, the hat racks above the windows and the ceramic tiles on the floor in shades of cream, brown and gray have also been preserved in the original.
Historical meaning
The Chadwick Square Diner is a well-preserved example of the so-called "rail car diner", which is comparatively rare in Massachusetts, the design of which was inspired by streetcars and railroad cars and was produced in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The Worcester Lunch Car Company was the largest diner manufacturer in Massachusetts before World War II . As one of the oldest operating diners in the state, it is an important document of the commercial development of the city of Worcester.
The first Chadwick Square Diner was built in 1928 and was not far from where it is today. Robert E. Gilhooly operated this model and its successor, built in 1930 and which still exists today, for more than 27 years until his death in 1955. He was succeeded by Ralph Dryden, who previously ran the Valley Diner in Worcester. He had it moved to a new location, where it was painted by John Baeder in 1974 . In 1979, the new owner, Ralph Moberly, moved the diner to its current location and had it integrated into the rear of the house, which he has since operated as a mixture of diner and nightclub.
See also
literature
- Kathleen Kelly Broomer, Betsy Friedberg: National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. (PDF) National Park Service , October 30, 2003, accessed on July 19, 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.
- ↑ John Baeder: Diners . Abrams, New York 1995, ISBN 978-0-8109-2611-0 .
- ↑ cf. Broomer / Friedberg, p. 7.