Archive for the ‘roadside’ Category

Sebak on the road again for summer LH video

June 9, 2008

I met Rick Sebak about 1990 as he was preparing to produce a show about roadside attractions in Pennsylvania. We traveled the Lincoln Highway together, and now almost two decades later (seems like two years!) he’s traveling the Lincoln Highway coast-to-coast for an hour-long show to debut later this summer. We’ve also worked together on programs about diners, Isaly’s, and one called Stuff That’s Gone, but we still talk most about the Lincoln Highway and the places we saw back then that are now gone, most notably the Ship Hotel.


Above: Jarrett, Rick, and Bob at the Western Terminus of the LH.

Last fall Rick and cameraman Bob Lubomski made it to the Pacific and back with Jarrett Buba. This time Rick and Bob are joined in the QED van by sound-and-video man Glenn Syska, who is also helping post their daily blog. They’re leaving early today with a plan of getting as far west ASAP. Of course, that was the plan last time! There’s never enough time or daylight to fit in all the cool places along the way….

The blog for his last long LH trip ended September 1 at San Francisco. Rick just updated it to include the days heading back east — scroll down and you’ll find another entry for that day called No Reservations. Start there and remember the days get more recent as you go up (so the top is the most recent, when they had reached Nebraska). Posts from the trip starting today should start arriving tonight or tomorrow — they have some great stops planned.

Also check out his Video Postcards link, which offer a great daily look at sites along the way.

BTW, note that the web address has changed — it can now be found at http://www.wqed.org/tv/sebak/lincoln_hwy/blog/. So has the name — no longer just Lincoln Highway Postcards, it now carries the name of the show, A Ride Along The Lincoln Highway. You can see when the blog updates by watching the RSS feed on the page in the column to the right.

Ozoners' 75th anniversary is today

June 6, 2008

It was 75 years ago today that the first drive-in theater opened. Celebrate these icons of car culture and the open road with a visit this week. What’s playing? Indiana Jones, Kung Fu Panda, The Strangers, Iron Man, Narnia–Prince Caspian, Baby Mama, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Made of Honor, and What Happens in Vegas are just some of the flicks on local outdoor screens. Clck the drive-in page to the right to see a list of operating “ozoners” along the Lincoln Highway.

Now it’s time to start the show.

Diamond anniversary of the drive-in theater

June 2, 2008

TO-DO THIS WEEKEND: Celebrate the 75th anniversary of the drive-in theater with a visit to a drive-in. Take a chair and sit under the stars, buy some popcorn at the snack bar, stay for both features, and try to figure out why you stopped (or never started) going. Don’t complain that no drive-ins are nearby, they can still be found in 47 states.

ABOVE: At the drive-in, 4th of July, 2007 . Photo © by Brian Butko

It was June 6, 1933, when Richard Hollingshead Jr opened the first drive-in theater, lighting the night sky in Camden, New Jersey. By the late 1950s, thousands of “ozoners” sat at the suburban fringe of most every town, but then they began closing. Blame TV, VCRs, smaller cars, fewer family movies, less need for a private getaway, Daylight Savings Time, rising insurance on the playgrounds, aging equipment, retiring owners, skyrocketing land values – or all of them – but only 397 theaters remain (with 650 screens). About half of those are members of the United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association, a group that celebrates the industry and its accomplishments. In fact, Hollingshead’s son, Richard III, was guest of honor this past winter at UDITOA annual convention. Here are some drive-ins still operating on or very close to the Lincoln Highway, pulled from the UDITOA list site plus my own recollection – please send additions:

CA
Sacramento: SACRAMENTO 6 DRIVE-IN

CO
Fort Collins: HOLIDAY TWIN DRIVE-IN – www.holidaytwindrive-in.com
Fort Morgan: VALLEY DRIVE-IN

IN
Plymouth: TRI-WAY DRIVE-IN – www.triwaydrivein.com
Valparaiso: 49’er DRIVE-IN – www.49erdrivein.com

NV
Sparks: EL RANCHO DRIVE-IN – www.westwinddriveins.com

OH
Kenton: HI-ROAD DRIVE-IN – www.metheatres.com
between Van Wert and Delphos: Van-Del Drive-In

Mansfield: SPRINGMILL DRIVE-IN – www.springmilldrive-in.com

PA
Latrobe: HI-WAY DRIVE-IN

UT
Riverdale: MOTOR VU DRIVE-IN (4 screens)
Tooele: MOTOR VU DRIVE-IN

WV
Chester: HILLTOP DRIVE-IN

This list will now be available as one of the easy-reference pages listed to the right. Check there for updates.

McDonald's, Rohrer's survive & adapt to roadside

May 29, 2008

My trip last week along the Lincoln Highway near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, took me past many old businesses including a McDonald’s that retains its 1960s arch, and an old family business in a new location. Here’s the McDonald’s on the west end of Lancaster. Few of these single-arch sign survive; a similar one was just removed in Huntsville, Alabama, but was saved by the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio.

And here’s the new location in Mountville of Rohrer’s Hardware, a decades-old family business that was profiled recently at Lancaster Online. The story contains interesting insights for anyone interested in preserving non-chain businesses and roadscapes.

Following is an excerpt from the news story:

Jim Rohrer is a die-hard hardware guy — a survivor in an age when big-box retailers are driving family-owned hardware stores to the brink of extinction.

He’s been in the business since 1975, when he and his father, Harry, opened Rohrer’s Hardware off Columbia Avenue between Centerville and Mountville.

Harry, 85, still comes into the store for a couple of hours nearly every day, Jim Rohrer said.

The Rohrers survived a fire in 1992, moving the store down the road to Woods Edge Plaza just in time to see Lowe’s open a home improvement center on nearby Rohrerstown Road.

Now, they have moved Rohrer’s Hardware again, a half-mile away to 2734 Columbia Ave., where the traffic is less congested and the overhead less expensive, but where Lowe’s still looms as the store’s biggest competitor.

“I could look at my sales figures and tell you exactly” when Lowe’s opened six years ago, Rohrer said.

Yet, despite that drastic drop in sales, Rohrer has been able to keep going — move and all — by catering to longtime customers, and by providing some of the services and supplies that big-box stores don’t find profitable….

What they don’t realize, he said, is that very often his prices are actually lower.

“If people shop around, they’re going to find out [the big boxes] cannot sell every product cheaper than everybody else,” Rohrer said. It’s just the “they spend millions to build that perception.”…

“People have to realize if they want stores like us to be here they need to use us as more than just the store of last resort,” he said. [my emphasis]

Here’s an image from the article:

Ace Drive-In remains a roadside gem

May 28, 2008

The Ace Drive-In along the Lincoln Highway in Joliet, Illinois, is a welcome site in warm weather—classic food at a place little changed from a half century ago. It is one of the many brief profiles in my next book, Lincoln Highway Companion, but here with a great story about the place are impressions by John Weiss, who visits regularly with his wife Lenore:

We promote historic highways because they are a link to the past, a time not so long ago where mom, pop and apple pie culture was in abundance. Radios would sing out, “See the USA in your Chevrolet, America is asking you to call!”

Nothing makes your mind drift back to those glory years than one word: CARHOP. How cool it was to pull into the drive-in, flash your lights, and a pretty young girl would come to your car. Watching her come back balancing a full tray of frosted root beer, burgers, and fries was remarkable. “Please raise your window” she would say, then proceed to hook that mysterious tray onto your car door window.

Compare that with pulling up and talking to a machine. Then drive to a window to pay and pick up your order. Then you hear the mundane line, “Have a nice day.” That is not cool!

Not many original drive-ins with real car hops still exist. But there is one in Joliet, Illinois. If you are looking for nostalgia and a slice of Americana, then you have to visit the ACE DRIVE-IN. The Ace has been here since 1949. This fantastic icon is located on historic Lincoln Highway (Route 30) in Joliet. For you Route 66ers, Ace is only a short distance west of Ottawa Street, Route 66.

Homemade frosty root beer by the glass or by the gallon is available. All those great food treats that you would expect along with their famous car hops makes this a blast from the past. Family minivans and regular cars make up the majority of the customers, but all heads turn when the inevitable classic car pulls in with a Fonzie wannabe at the wheel. Even picnic tables under the trees are available with car hop service.

In spring, summer, and fall, this is the place to find good food, good prices, and those remarkable vanishing symbols of nostalgia, carhops.

That’s John researching this story in his 1966 Mustang!

Ace Drive-In
1207 Plainfield Rd/Lincoln Hwy/US 30
Joliet, Illinois
(815) 726-7741

Photos © by John and Lenore Weiss.

Vintage motels hang on near York, Pennsylvania

May 27, 2008

My drive last week along the Lincoln Highway in central Pennsylvania took me past many mid-century motels. Here are three east of York along Market Street/PA 462: Barnhart’s, the Modernaire, and the Flamingo.

I’ll briefly profile a few motels like these in every LH state in my forthcoming book, Lincoln Highway Companion.

Highway 30 Barn Tour and Picnic, June 7-8

May 26, 2008

Twenty five barns will be featured on the Iowa Barn Foundation’s Highway 30 Barn Tour and Picnic, Saturday, June 7 and Sunday, June 8, 2008. This tour stretches from river-to-river across Iowa along US 30, the Lincoln Highway. Barns on this free, self-guided tour will be open both days 8:30 am to 5:30 pm. The tour is dedicated to educating people about the importance of barn history and preservation.

Above is one wing of the Iowa State University Horse Barn, Ames (from the Iowa Barn Foundation web site).

The Highway 30 picnic and barn dance, featuring the Barn Owls, will be held Saturday evening in the Community Center at the Story County Fairgrounds in Nevada, Iowa, from 5:30 to 9 pm. To reach the fairgrounds, turn off old Highway 30 at First Avenue in Nevada, and travel south to I Avenue. Cost of the picnic and dance is $10 per person, children $5. Learn more about the Iowa tour and all the barns at the Iowa Barn Foundation.

Another Lincoln Highway diner in PA reopens

May 22, 2008

Lancaster Online reported last week on the reopening of a popular Lincoln Highway eatery. The Prospect Diner is along the Lincoln Highway (Columbia Ave/Rt 462) between Mountville and Columbia in the east-central part of the state. It had previously been known as Benji’s, the 3-D, and Keri’s, its name as it sat closed for the past year. New owners Michael and April Conroy have completely renovated the kitchen and and revivied seating area with lots of red vinyl along the counter, stools, and booths. The 1955 Kullman-brand diner, with a classic overhanging “outer space style” eave, features homestyle food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Open 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mon–Sat; 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sun.

Here it is on my trip last week – CLICK for a larger view.

Rock Cafe on Route 66 destroyed by fire

May 22, 2008

It’s not often we report on Route 66 here at Lincoln Highway News, but an icon of that two-lane road has been destroyed in a fire. The Rock Cafe of Stroud, Oklahoma, was not only a popular stop along Route 66 since the 1930s, but had gained fame a couple years ago when owner Dawn Welch served inspiration for Sally the Porsche in the Disney/Pixar film Cars.

As you can see in my photo above, they celebrated the connection with little cutouts of the car characters. Read all about the fire, and plans to rebuild, on Ron Warnick’s Route 66 News. To see this image larger, CLICK on my photo below to go to my Flickr post – to see it even bigger, once there you can click “ALL SIZES” above the image.

Retro diner to be less retro

May 21, 2008

I’ve just returned from a trip along the Lincoln Highway in mid-Pennsylvania, bringing back hundreds of photos and some updates. Here’s one from just outside York.

The Starlite Diner is only 8 years old yet is already being redone inside. What was a cutting-edge retro diner in 2000 looks a bit old as the revival has faded. New owners are changing everything from the name to menu. Work is underway on what will become the Nautilus Diner, according to Steve C. Efstathiou, who just purchased the eatery. He already owns three diners in New York and Maryland.

Indications are that the new owner is trying for a “step above a diner” with new booths, tables, floor, and wall coverings; Efstathiou said, “The diner is only 8 years old…. The diner doesn’t have to be changed. I just want people to know that its under new ownership.”

The 215-seat diner is in West Manchester Twp. at Kenneth Road along US 30, a Lincoln Highway bypass. It was previously known for its crab cakes and made-to-order sautés; it will remain open 24/7. Check the 4/13 York Daily Record for a report on the sale and a slight delay in the work.