Two books for anyone who slows down when the neon’s still on.
The American Diner (Michael Karl Witzel) is the wide-angle history—lunch wagons to streamlined chrome palaces, 250-plus photographs of the form at full glow.
Hometown Diners (Robert O. Williams, a Philadelphia Inquirer staff photographer) is the close-up companion: the waitresses, the short-order cooks, the regulars who turn a stainless-steel box into a landmark.
One book is about the buildings; the other is about the people inside them. Together they’re the whole story of an American institution that’s vanishing one demolition at a time.
Two books for anyone who slows down when the neon’s still on.
The American Diner (Michael Karl Witzel) is the wide-angle history—lunch wagons to streamlined chrome palaces, 250-plus photographs of the form at full glow.
Hometown Diners (Robert O. Williams, a Philadelphia Inquirer staff photographer) is the close-up companion: the waitresses, the short-order cooks, the regulars who turn a stainless-steel box into a landmark.
One book is about the buildings; the other is about the people inside them. Together they’re the whole story of an American institution that’s vanishing one demolition at a time.
