Bad news for 'Goodfellas' filming location; new orbit for epic Blue Comet diner sign; Arizona garden's glow up; sad sign in Wildwood | Roadside Roundup
Plus, a historic theater is demolished in New Jersey -- and one place nearby that's still suitable for framing. (You'll see what I did there.)
If there’s one place I tell people to visit in New Jersey if they have more than a day to poke around, it’s Wildwood. Though their lot is diminishing, the collection of doo-wop motels and accompanying signage remains impressive. Yet somehow, we keep losing these gems — big, shiny ones I thought were as safe and revered as the Hope Diamond.
When it comes to the Wildwoods — it’s three communities under the Wildwood name — I’ve been gnawing on my fingernails a little more than usual since we’ve now lost a second icon in as many weeks at this seaside community. According to a report, the 1960s Panoramic Motel in North Wildwood is turning into condos, and while it appears the building will be preserved, the sign — that gorgeous sign, that sign that’s in my new book — has been taken down.
Check out the photos on the Facebook page of the Wildwood Sun by the Sea Magazine, where I learned of this news.
I've made an inquiry, but no word yet on the fate of this sign, and on what’s going on here. I’ll share updates as I get them, and if you have leads, please share them with me.
Here’s what I wrote in 2019 about the Panoramic:
When I last visited the stunning Panoramic Motel, the owner was nice enough to give me and my road-trip pals original brochures from 1966. There are few places that still look just like they did in the 1960s, but the Panoramic in North Wildwood is one of them. The first image is the motel today, and the rest are images from that 1966 brochure. As you can see, the place hasn’t changed a bit:
I shared in a recent newsletter the sad news about the demolition of the Chateau Bleu Motel in North Wildwood.
What are your favorite Wildwood motels, whether they are still standing or just standing out in your memory? Let everyone know in the comments.
Blue Comet Diner neon sign in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, to glow again in new orbit
Another sign featured in my book is the Blue Comet Diner in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. This sign stood for decades beside the old Mountain View diner from 1957, which was last open in 2011.
Now, the sign and the diner have been separated, and the sign is undergoing restoration by local high-school students, reports WVIA.
Students at the Hazleton Area Career Center are hard at work restoring the sign, which, when fixed up, will go to the Greater Hazleton Historical Society and Museum. Other vintage signs from the area are in their collection, including the Knotty Pine Restaurant, Empire Cleaners and the Hazleton Hotel, the PBS station reported.
As for the old diner, it won’t be coming back. The land is owned by the Mericle Family Center YMCA, which will demolish the Blue Comet and expand the Y into the diner’s former turf. The earliest iteration of the Blue Comet opened in 1931, so there’s a lot of history here.
Mesa’s Neon Garden at the Post gets glowing reviews in big debut
At long last, the Neon Garden at the Post in Mesa, Arizona, has opened, with a lighting ceremony held on Thursday.
The signs on display are: Bill Johnson’s Big Apple; a horizontal Dairy Queen sign; a Smiley Ford dealer sign; the tall Watson’s Flowers sign, felled in a 2014 windstorm; and the Frontier Motel. A smaller replica of the 60-foot animated Starlite Motel sign in town has also been created.
The Phoenix New Times has a nice dive into the saga leading to the creation of the garden, which gives a home to sensational salvaged signs of the region and celebrates the roadside culture that gave them life.
Seeing one of my photos (for Bill Johnson’s) on the Mesa Convention Center website was a neat surprise.
More signs are coming, including Ziggie’s, above, from a Phoenix music shop that closed last year.
Below are photos of Bill Johnson’s and the Mesa Dairy Queen that I took in 2018, when they were still at their original homes.
And here’s another wonderful sign park in Arizona ….
AZ Central takes us on a nighttime tour of the Casa Grande Neon Sign Park in Arizona. I visited back in November on a research trip for my book and really fell for the place.
There is an interesting sign in Casa Grande that isn’t in the park, but may well end up there one day, hopefully no time soon — a now rare Dairy Queen Brazier sign.
Brazier is a trademarked DQ name for restaurants offering hot food, cooked on a charcoal grill or “char-broiled” as they used to say.
Brazier was introduced in 1958, and originated from the inventive mind of George territory operator Jim Cruikshank, according to a lovely company history book, and was first rolled out in Rome, Georgia. Today, the Brazier concept has evolved into the Grill & Chill stores. At Casa Grande, you see the classic Brazier and the newer Grill & Chill signs displayed side by side.
The sign park already has a nice Dairy Queen “Lips” sign, rescued from the DQ in Holbrook, Arizona, which was being forced by corporate to make changes. See photos, below, of the sign in the park and at its original Holbrook home in 2013.
RELATED: Route 66 Neon Park opens in St. Robert, Missouri.
RELATED: Pocatello, billing itself as Idaho’s neon capital, is holding a neon festival in July. Details here.
Bad news (again) for the Goodfellas Diner
The Goodfellas Diner, so named because of its appearance in Martin Scorsese’s 1990 mob classic, has been torched — again. The Maspeth, Queens, diner closed in 2018 after it caught fire, and it’s sat there, forlorn if not forgotten, ever since. Earlier this month, an RV parked in the diner’s parking lot caught fire, and the flames jumped to the already singed diner.
The diner was still known as the Clinton Diner when it appeared in a pivotal scene in “Goodfellas,” featuring Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta chatting in a booth. The film’s success eventually confined the Clinton name to the history books, and the diner took on the “Goodfellas” moniker. Another Queens diner that is fairing much better and that’s featured in the film is the Jackson Hole (nee Air Line Diner), its glorious neon much like it looked in the movie. (See my Instagram post here.)
The more you know: Clinton refers to DeWitt Clinton, a powerful early 19th-century politician and governor of New York State who was the driving force behind the construction of the Erie Canal, which opened New York City and the Northeast to the heartland, boosted national trade and the economy and cemented New York’s role as the Empire State. Clinton had a country house here in Maspeth, which survived until 1933, when it burned down and was never rebuilt. (A historical marker denotes the spot.) An event venue in Maspeth — Clinton Hall — carries on the name today.
The Air Line Diner appears in my book, “The Great American Retro Road Trip.” Preorder it here.
Historic New Jersey theater demolished
Technological changes have been the bane of movie theaters for decades, with streaming the latest and perhaps greatest threat they’ve faced. In Tenafly, New Jersey, the theater once known as the New Bergen, and in its final act owned by Bow Tie Cinemas, has been demolished. The theater closed in 2018, and housing will replace the building. According to NorthJersey.com, the owner shut the theater after its exterior was named a landmark. The designation was meant to protect the theater. So much for that.
When I shot the theater in 2023, I had stopped in Tenafly on a mission to photograph Tenafly Camera, which has an appealing vintage sign:
See more photos of the theater through the years here.
Signposts Up Ahead
The sign for the Cattleman’s Cafe in Amarillo, Texas, has been taken down — but fear not. It’s simply being restored in Dallas as part of revitalization efforts along Route 66. The restoration is well-timed ahead of Route 66’s 100th anniversary next year.
The Stardust Motel in Rapid City, South Dakota, has been turned into apartments, but the new hands haven’t turned their back on the fabulously futuristic sign, which is 1980s to the max and has been lovingly restored.
The former home of Sweet Tooth Candies in Newport, Kentucky, is being remodeled for commercial and housing use. The candy shop, which opened in 1972, decamped in search of another location last year.
In West Chester, Iowa, lies an unofficial sign museum that “has grown into a sprawling, private outdoor museum of antique advertising signs and nostalgic Americana curated by one eastern Iowa man with a deep appreciation for history.” That man is Hal Colliver, and here’s his story.
The Circle M Diner in Wantagh, New York, on Long Island, celebrates 50 years.
A reporter for the Democrat & Chronicle newspaper made an ambitious, multi-visit attempt to determine whether a beloved 1947 bakery in Greece, New York, Jackson’s, has closed for good. All signs pointed to yes, but she has determined it’s struggling, but still in business. Hanging by a thread … sadly, an all-too-common story for such businesses. I do know the feeling and frustration of trying to confirm this kind of news, when it’s so closely kept and the owners have their reasons for not wanting to talk.
A glowing profile of Nigel Barnes and Jen Casebolt of Electric Spaghetti Neon, a sign shop in Portland, Oregon.
Here’s a report on a visit to one of my favorite spots in California, Dr. Wilkinson’s Backyard Resort & Mineral Springs in Calistoga, which opened in 1952. When I first visited in 2003, Dr. John Wilkinson himself was still with us, and greeted me and my friends at the office when I arrived. I still occasionally crave one of their signature mud baths.
The long-shut Royal Palace Motel on Colorado Boulevard in Denver has been demolished. The sign, featuring a crown topped by a spinning disco ball, has been saved, and part of it is now on display at the Counterpath in Denver. The crown and ball are at the home of Jonny Barber, who has preserved artifacts from the roadside Americana we have been losing along Colfax Avenue. Per Denver7: “Barber, who likens himself to Indiana Jones when it comes to Colfax artifacts, said his goal is to one day open a museum or attraction that displays neon signs and other pieces of the street's history." Neon is art, and neon is just beautiful," he said. "[Neon signs] have that allure because their job is to, you know, draw people off the street.”
Portland’s “Big Pink” office building is up for grabs. A quirky skyline addition from 1983, it was built by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill for U.S. Bank. Pink building? Paging Beebe Gallini! (IYKYK)
A long-forgotten time capsule has been found - and opened — in San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid, which is under renovation.
An homage or theft? The nonprofit Carnegie Hall Corp. is suing a chain of restaurants called Carnegie Diner & Cafe, claiming that the restaurants are infringing on its intellectual property and sowing confusion among customers. This Cargenie Diner chain has no connection to the original Cargenie Deli, which closed its original location near Carnegie Hall almost a decade ago but maintains an outpost at Madison Square Garden.
It’s nice to know there are still people in our world who so believe in the power of neon that they make it a symbol of the town. That’s what they did in the Richmond, Virginia, neighborhood of Carytown, installing a large neon sign to welcome people to town in a manner typical of many cities in the early 20th century, when neon was a novelty. They paid for it with money from the pandemic-era American Rescue Plan, but since installation, the sign has needed rescue twice, once from vandalism and now from technical problems. Please stand by, Carytown.
High school students learning how to bend glass tubing and repair neon?
We're going to be ok.
And those kids will make bank.
Going to Phoenix in the fall. Going to have to look for the signs in Mesa.