Well, It’s Not A Marvelous Night For A Moondance
The Moondance Diner, that is. Once a famous New York eatery located close to the entrance to the Holland Tunnel, the diner had been truck all the way across the country to Wyoming. Where the snowfall crushed it.
GREEN RIVER, Wyo. (1010 WINS) — The Moondance Diner made it safely through a 2,100-mile trek west from New York City last summer, but the roof of the famed eatery was damaged by snow during the bitter Wyoming winter.
The diner's owners Cheryl and Vince Pierce said they'll continue renovating the space after parts of the roof and walls were damaged Thursday, the Casper Star-Tribune reported. The couple hopes to open the restaurant later this year in LaBarge, a town of about 500 at the base of the Rocky Mountains, where the diner now sits.
Well, at least they are going to try to restore it. Preferably with reinforced structural elements. The diner was rescued from a developer's wrecking ball earlier this year. They are building luxury condos on the former site in Manhattan. The weather hadn't helped that process, either:
A die-hard group of about 20 former patrons and fans waited through a long night of preparations to bid farewell to the
74-year-old Manhattan eatery, said Michael Perlman, a Queens preservationist and diner aficionado. They blew kisses and took photographs as the Moondance began a 2,100-mile trip to LaBarge, Wyo., he said, describing the moment as bittersweet.“I am really grateful that it has a secure home in Wyoming,'' Perlman said, “but we're sort of sad that a New York City icon is abandoning us.''
After a developer bought the Moondance's site for luxury housing, Vincent Pierce and his wife, Cheryl, saved the doomed diner by buying it for $7,500. He said he expected the trek through nine states to take about a week, with the route depending on where the 14-foot-high load can pass under bridges along the way.
Pierce and his father-in-law, Kent Profit, will share the driving. Profit owns the truck, and the flatbed trailer was borrowed from a company in Wyoming.
The diner's departure came after a three-day bureaucratic snarl over city permits and a torrential rainstorm that briefly delayed the project.
I personally love those old-style rail car style diners that were so common in New York back in the day - Upstate had a lot of them, too. There was one in Oswego, New York that used to serve the best ham and cheese omelet I ever had.
Environment | Gaius Sunday, 6 January , 2008
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The McGehee Zone — Sunday, 6 January , 2008 @ 9:06 pm
By Sam, Sunday, 6 January , 2008 @ 9:37 pm
Having been to both Green River and LaBarge, I have a hard time believing that they got enough snow to collapse a roof. It gets God-awful cold in both of those places, but I have never known them to get that much snow. But who knows? LaBarge and Big Piney, and Pinedale, all in the same general vicinity, usually battle it out for the coldest spot in Wyoming.
By McGehee, Monday, 7 January , 2008 @ 7:05 am
I blame global warming.
By BadBob, Monday, 7 January , 2008 @ 8:56 am
Ah … the fast food of the pre Micky Dee generations going the way of the dodo … overtaken by minimum wage drones. I used to be amazed at the prowess of the short order cooks, but some were really exceptional. Fred at “Fred’s Diner” where I grew up on LI used to do all the cooking right there on the open grill, wait on a dozen people sitting at the counter, do takeout orders and cashier all at the same time. It took two waitresses to handle the booths. Best breakfast around and a killer fresh burger second to none! A lost art for sure ..