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Roadside diners are a vanishing species. This Streamline Moderne-style model boasts an original 1954 interior. It sits vacant on a sprawl-afflicted section of the National Road (U.S. 40). (Photo courtesy of RoadsideArchitecture.com.) See more photos at Flickr.com.
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Plainfield Diner
(NEW on 10 Most list)
Plainfield
In the mid-twentieth century, 5,000 roadside diners were favored stops for blue-highway motorists. Now diners represent a dying breed of landmark, rendered obsolete by fast-food chains, urban sprawl, and interstates. So when the Plainfield Diner closed in 2009, a preservation alarm sounded.
The Plainfield Diner on the town’s Main Street has served guests at a neighboring motel and motorists traveling the National Road (U.S. 40) since 1954, when it was manufactured in New Jersey and transported by rail to Indiana. The diner’s Streamline Moderne-style, coffee cup sign and pink tile interior created a setting inspired by speed and the motor age. Especially popular in the 1940s and 1950s, diners drew patrons looking for convenient, made-to-order food—hot breakfasts, tenderloin sandwiches, chili platters, and steaming coffee—at cheap prices.
The threat: The Plainfield Health Department closed the restaurant last summer, citing structural deterioration. The landmark sits on a sprawl-afflicted section of the National Road at Ronald Reagan Parkway where the land is more valuable than the structure. Financially unable to repair the diner, the owner has listed it for sale at a price based on the land value—far too high for anyone interested in keeping the site as a diner. Many people in the Plainfield and the preservation community recognize the diner’s rarity and want to save it.
For more information contact:
Mark Dollase
Vice President of Preservation Services, Indiana Landmarks, Indianapolis
317-639-4534 or 800-450-4534
mdollase@indianalandmarks.org
or
Joe James
Director of Planning and Zoning, City of Plainfield
317- 839-2561, x 217
jjames@town.plainfield.in.us