Pursuits : Elizabeth Thomsen

The Worcester Lunch Car Company
By Richard J. S. Gutman

This slim volume from Arcadia’s Images of America series is a collection of old photographs, advertisements, articles, menus, matchbooks and other documents and memorabilia about The Worcester Lunch Car Company and some of the 651 diners they made during 55 years in business. Gutman, who is the author of American Diner Then and Now, interviewed some of the key personnel from the diner manufacturer before they died, and had access to the company archives preserved at the Worcester Historical Society, as well as his own collection of photographs from decades of road trips and research.
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Yesterday I finally took some pictures of the Miss Worcester Diner, something I’ve been meaning to do for years. I have vivid memories of visiting my grandparents in Worcester when I was a young child. We lived in the Boston suburbs, and the gritty urban landscape of South Worcester slightly fascinated me. The Miss Worcester Diner, with an old factory behind, and the rusty railroad overpass across the way, seemed to me to be the very symbol of the city.
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