RoadsideOnline

We republish this bit of commentary from 2007 in light of the latest developments surrounding the Vale-Rio Diner in Phoenixville. As the Philadelphia Inquirer reported today, owner Frances Puleo, the guy that removed the diner from its long-time location has posted the diner on Ebay for a cool quarter mil. 

PHOENIXVILLE, PA -- It's official: owner Francis Puleo wants to replace his landmark Vale-Rio Diner with a Walgreens and a Starbucks. Puleo, who owns the diner, the business, and the property, assured Roadside that he will move the historic diner to a new location within the borough. He alerted us last month to his plans, and this past week, he and his developer did indeed file plans for the new development. "You just can't make enough money in the diner business these days," he told us.

We note here that Puleo didn't say he was not making any money from the diner, just not enough. He also assured Roadside that his real estate company had a parcel available for the new location. We can't help but wonder if he couldn't make enough money in Vale-Rio's current prime location, how will he make enough money in a less desirable spot? We ask this knowing that it often takes a half-million dollars, or more, to move and set up a diner of this size. There's something funny floating in this cup of coffee.

Just to place this news in perspective, residents of Phoenixville tell us that they already have two drugstores along that stretch of Route 23 within a half-mile of his location. See for yourself: Click here.

But as we've seen in the past ten years, such quibbles matter little to the pharmacy juggernauts or the developers that cater to them. The Vale-Rio Diner is one of only four remaining Paramount diners with the burnished circle pattern in its stainless skin. In our general observations of this business over the past two decades, any closing and removal of a diner to storage immediately endangers it. We don't like the odds of this one ever reopening. .

At Mr. Gutman's talk, the Chamber handed out these sheets that encouraged you to "Build your own Skee's Diner." In about five years, this may be all we have left of it. Click on the image to see a full size version. 

The Waterbury Republican-American recently reported that the project to move Skee's Diner, renovate it, and reopen it as a welcome center just increased in price to an even $400,000, up from $375,000. I could hear the collective groans of the unemployed of northwestern Connecticut from here.

I stopped at the 90-year-old diner last year to check on its general condition. Just driving through the area, I had wondered how eight years of disuse and controversy had treated the old girl. Not long afterward, someone involved with the project to move and restore the diner contacted me in response to the article inspired by that visit, where I laid out my five-year prediction for Skee's ultimate demise.

Eventually, this person asked me to speak at a planned gathering and perhaps give a little pep talk about the diner's prospects and possibly sway some of the thinking behind the plans. Scheduling conflicts forced me to cancel, and Richard Gutman took my place. From the reports that I received after his visit, it looks like I made the right decision — at Mr. Gutman's expense.

Update 3/4/10: After further consideration, I've decided that I erred in the use of Ms. Vance-Kuss's photo. For that I apologize. I do, however, stand by my comments about the practice they depicted.
Update: Ms. Vance-Kuss has responded to my commentary here.

I came across this Flickr post and this accompanying photograph by way of a LifeHacker mention, and soon became pretty horrified at what I saw. A "clever" photographer/collector named Jacki Vance-Kuss had found troves of old Kodachrome slides and decided it'd be neat-o to make a curtain out of them and hang them over her windows. Ms. Vance-Kuss gives us an example of her handiwork in this photo which she has shared with the world via Flickr, Makezine, and Lifehacker.

I've bought and found such troves as well, though not nearly as many as I wish. I enjoy them for not only their imagery, but also for their potential historic value. In a pile of images, you simply never know when you might be the owner of an important clue that would solve a mystery, end a controversy, or simply give inspiration in my daily work as a designer.

Hanging them out in the sun, as this Ms. Vance-Kuss proposes, may seem cute and fun, but before too long, the practice destroys the image forever. I'm happy to admit that this might seem like a good, cheap way to simulate the effects of a stained glass window, but it's easily accomplished with your own roll of slides exposed to mundane images in your own back yard.

So, people, please, if you come across a pile of old photos and/or slides, and you don't want them or would like to see them in the hands who might really appreciate them for what they are, by all means, send them along to me. I will take care of them and put them to good use.

Read the thread here.

New London, Connecticut in 2002: Yet another historic New England downtown awaiting a proper revival.

Here’s my theory on why towns and cities fail: At the first sign of decline, as the tax base begins to shrink, and as these cities increasingly become wards of their respective states, the truly intelligent and productive people that grew up there leave as soon as they can. Most of the time, they have little choice as better opportunities lie elsewhere. Those with lesser abilities, lower ambitions, and fewer opportunities stay behind to muddle along. They advance or get elected to positions, establishing connections with others in this mediocrity that allow them to develop a power base, and they run the show with a combination of chronic ignorance, grim determination, and cynical ineptitude.

In other words, show me a municipality going absolutely nowhere, and I’ll show you a city hall run by dopes.

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Eighty percent of everything that has ever been built in America has been built in the last fifty years, and most of it is depressing, brutal, ugly, and spiritually degrading---the jive-plastic commuter tract home wastelands, the Potemkin village shopping plazas with their vast parking lagoons, the lego-block hotel complexes, the "gourmet-mansardic" junk-food joints, the Orwellian office "parks" featuring buildings sheathed in the same reflective glass as the sunglasses worn by chain-gang guards, the particle-board garden apartments rising up in every meadow and cornfield, the freeway loops around every big and little city with their clusters of discount merchandise marts, the whole destructive, wasteful, toxic, agoraphobia-inducing spectacle and politicians proudly call "growth."

James Howard Kunstler