Major Bibliographical References (Cite the books, articles, and other sources used in preparing this form on one or more continuation sheets.) Previous documentation on file (NPS): Primary location of additional data: - preliminary determination of individual listing (36 X State Historic Preservation Office CFR 67) has been requested - Other State agency - previously listed in the National Register - Federal agency - previously determined eligible by the National - Local government Register - University - designated a National Historic Landmark - Other _ recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey Name of repository: # - recorded by Historic American Engineering Record #. NPS Form 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet 7 1 Section number Page OMB No.
1024-0018 The Diners of Massachusetts MPS Ralph's Chadwick Square Diner Worcester (Worcester Co.), MA 7. Description Ralph's Chadwick Square Diner, 95 rear Prescott Street, Worcester (1930, MHC #2137, Worcester Lunch Car #660) is a fine example of the rail car type of diner produced by Worcester Lunch Car Company. The diner is located in the North Works of the Washburn and Moen Manufacturing Company (NRDIS/NRMRA 03/15/80), which is north of Worcester's central business district and institutional core. Buildings in this historic industrial area are now occupied by mixed uses. Chadwick Square Diner was moved to its present location about the time the Washburn and Moen district was listed in the National Register but was not included in the nomination at that time. The diner is situated midway between Prescott Street and Grove Street at the northern end of the historic mill yard.
Though the diner faces Grove Street, it is attached to the rear of a two-story brick building known as Washburn and Moen Building #7 (last quarter 19" century). A combination diner/nightclub operates in the factory-built diner and the attached building. The presence of the industrial building to the rear does not compromise the historic or architectural integrity of the diner. For the purpose of this nomination, the industrial building is a noncontributing building. Chadwick Square Diner measures forty feet in length and fourteen feet in depth, running twelve bays across the facade and about three bays deep. The diner is of wood frame construction with porcelain enamel wall panels on the exterior. It displays a typical streetcar form with a monitor roof, long band of clerestory windows, and integral entries in the end walls beneath the roof overhang.
End-wall entries were modified when the diner was grafted onto the building at 95 Prescott Street about 1979. The north entry is an emergency exit and the south entry now opens into the principal entrance for the nightclub. Windows are single-hung wood with transoms intact. The clerestory windows, some of which appear to retain original glazing, are visible on both the exterior and interior. Signage on the diner includes the porcelain enamel wall panels, painted to read CHADWICK SQUARE DINER and Tables for Ladies. Cresting on the roof is executed in neon, and a roof-mounted neon sign reads DINER. In addition, there are several neon signs attached to the brick building above the roof of the diner. On the interior, Chadwick Square Diner is exceptionally well preserved. There is a full-length marble counter with fifteen stools, most of which are the original enameled steel.
The back bar area retains the grill with a nickel silver range hood, as well as food preparation and storage in both wood cabinets and enameled refrigerator cases. Six marble-topped wood tables line the inside front wall, seating four per table on wood chairs with upholstered seats. The counter apron, back bar, and side and front walls below the windows display original pale yellow rectangular tiles. On the counter apron and front inside wall, the tile surface is ornamented with bands of black and white square tiles in a checkered pattern. The monitor ceiling is wood, with contemporary ceiling fans and track lighting installed. The footrest at the counter stools appears to be the original brass, and the ceramic tile floor retains a floral pattern of hexagonal and square tiles executed in cream, browns, and grays. Hat racks survive above the windows.
Archaeological Description While no ancient Native American resources are recorded on the diner property or in the general area, sites may be present. The diner is located in Worcester's historic industrial area at a site whose natural environmental characteristics have been obscured by urban and industrial development. The property may have originally included locational criteria (slope, soil drainage, distance to wetlands) that were favorable for ancient Native American settlement and subsistence (continued) NPS Form 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet 7/8 2/1 Section number Page OMB No. 1024-0018 The Diners of Massachusetts MPS Ralph's Chadwick Square Diner Worcester (Worcester Co.), MA activities.
The diner is currently located on a level to moderately sloping landscape that may have been well drained. The property is also located within 1,000 feet of Salisbury Pond, part of the Blackstone River drainage. Given the above information, the size of the nominated property (less than one acre) and impacts related to diner construction and its utilities, a low potential exists for locating significant ancient Native American resources on the property. A low potential also exists for locating significant historic archaeological resources on the diner property. Historic resources that predate the movement of the diner to its current site in 1979 have not been identified. Construction of a foundation for the diner and its utilities would also have an adverse impact on any historic resources that may have been located on the small lot.
As a result, a low potential exists for locating significant historic archaeological resources on the diner property. (end) 8. Statement of Significance Ralph's Chadwick Square Diner, Worcester (1930) is uncommon in Massachusetts as an example of the streetcar- inspired model of diner produced in the 1920s and early 1930s. Its manufacturer, the Worcester Lunch Car Company, was the state's premier diner builder and a major force in the design and construction of Massachusetts diners before World War II. One of the better preserved examples of this diner form in Massachusetts, Chadwick Square Diner retains a high degree of integrity, particularly on the interior, where the tile and wood finishes illustrate typical diner styling before the use of stainless steel became popular.
One of the oldest diners in Worcester, the Chadwick Square is an important survival of pre-World War II commercial development in the city. The diner's operation from at least three different sites in Worcester is typical of the portable nature of diners and has not adversely affected the diner's historic or architectural integrity. Retaining integrity of design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association, Ralph's Chadwick Square Diner meets Criteria A and C and Criteria Consideration B of the National Register of Historic Places at the state and local levels. At its present location, the Chadwick Square fronts Grove Street, not far from its original location at 414 Grove Street. Worcester city directories show that Robert E. Gilhooly, a resident of Boylston, operated the Chadwick Square Diner on the original site as early as 1928.
However, the Worcester Lunch Car Company's account book of lunch car construction for the years 1928 through 1931 shows the Chadwick Square Diner, car #660, was not fully paid for until the week of May 17, 1930. The cost was $795.00. The following week, company employees were dispatched to level and set up the diner, a job that took fourteen hours. It appears that the present diner may have been the second diner to occupy the site at 414 Grove Street. Later in 1930, company mechanics made return trips to the Chadwick Square, for fixing doors, building a radio shelf, and "changing panels." A Worcester Lunch Car Company catalog published ca. 1926-1927 includes a rendering of a dining car labeled "Chadwick Sq.
Diner." [Serving the World with Worcester Dining Cars] This barrel-roofed model, measuring twenty-six (continued) NPS Form 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet 8 2 Section number Page OMB No. 1024-0018 The Diners of Massachusetts MPS Ralph's Chadwick Square Diner Worcester (Worcester Co.), MA feet across and ten feet deep, is smaller than the present diner, which measures forty by fourteen feet with a monitor roof. The rendering may illustrate the first Chadwick Square Diner owned by Robert Gilhooly, and suggests that Gilhooly expanded his operation with the purchase of the present diner in 1930. The older Chadwick Square Diner would have seated fourteen people at the counter with a shelf for stand-up dining on the inside front wall.
By contrast, the present Chadwick Square diner can seat more than forty people at the counter and tables combined. The late 1950s brought a change in both the ownership and location of the Chadwick Square Diner. Robert Gilhooly died December 27, 1955. He apparently had operated the Chadwick Square Diner until his death, for a period of about twenty-seven years. Ralph Dryden of Leicester succeeded Gilhooly as the owner. Before owning the Chadwick Square Diner, Dryden was proprietor of the Valley Diner at 1546 Main Street in the Cherry Valley section of Worcester. By 1961, Dryden was no longer associated with the Valley Diner, but was operating the Chadwick Square Diner at its new location nearby at 1475 Main Street in Cherry Valley (Worcester). Ralph Dryden contracted with the Worcester Lunch Car Company for work on the diner at an unknown date, believed to be the late 1950s.
Undated notes in the company records show the company provided Dryden with a quote for alterations to the lettering on the exterior panels, specifically "to move lettering to center and fill in spaces on both ends with new panels." Currently the diner's end panels each read Tables for Ladies. At the time the quote was made, the diner was located at its second site at 1475 Main Street. Dryden apparently kept the Chadwick Square name for the diner, although the building was removed some distance from its original location. Chadwick Square Diner was still at the 1475 Main Street address when artist John Baeder captured its image in watercolor in 1974 and included the image in his book, Diners, first published in 1978. Baeder (b. 1938 in South Bend, Indiana) was raised in Atlanta and studied art at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama.
During his early career as art director of a New York-based advertising agency, Baeder began collecting vintage postcards, eventually focusing his collection on roadside views of small-town America, including gas stations, motels, restaurants, and diners. Baeder's early paintings were based on these postcard images. In 1972, after quitting his job in advertising, Baeder had his first art show at the O. K. Harris Gallery in Soho (New York City). By the time of his second show in 1974, Baeder was painting diners almost exclusively, partly due to a shift in his collecting activities from postcards to the color and black-and-white photographs he took of diners. He was labeled a photorealist painter, though he considers himself a representational landscape painter, representing an image of the landscape that impresses him.
[Diners, 103] In addition to the Chadwick Square Diner, Baeder's works include several other diners in Massachusetts, among them the former Ted's Diner (1974, watercolor) in Milford; Casey's (1974, watercolor) in Natick; the former Alice in the Hat (1974, watercolor) in Worcester; Stella's (now Main Street Diner, 1975, watercolor) in Woburn; Sisson's (1975, watercolor) in Middleborough; Viv's (now Judy's Diner, 1976, pencil) in Malden; and Day and Night (1977, watercolor) in Palmer. The large number of his diner paintings led to the publication of his book, Diners (1978, revised and updated 1995). Other books by Baeder include Gas, Food, and Lodging: A Postcard Odyssey through the Great American Roadside (1982) and Sign Language: Street Signs as Folk Art (1996). He resides in Nashville, Tennessee.
In 1979, Ralph Moberly moved the Chadwick Square Diner to its present location, at 95 rear Prescott Street. The diner was attached at the rear to a two-story brick building that had previously housed a refrigeration sales and service business. [1978 Sanborn map] Today, the diner and brick building to which it is now attached are operated as a (continued) NPS Form 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 3 Page OMB No. 1024-0018 The Diners of Massachusetts MPS Ralph's Chadwick Square Diner Worcester (Worcester Co.), MA combination diner/nightclub.
Most historic buildings in the immediate vicinity date to the late 19* and early 20th centuries and are associated with Washburn and Moen Manufacturing Company North Works Historic District (NRDIS/NRMRA 03/15/80), significant for its role in the wiremaking industry in Worcester. Most of the existing buildings in the North Works, including the building to which the Chadwick Square Diner is now attached, were part of the complex when the American Steel & Wire Division of U. S. Steel abandoned it in 1943. Since that time, district buildings have housed mixed uses. Chadwick Square Diner is comparatively unusual in Massachusetts for its intact and uncovered monitor at the roofline, and may be the earliest survivor of the railcar diner form in the state.
About 1929, the Worcester Lunch Car Company introduced this streetcar-inspired model of diner with a full-length monitor on the roof and clerestory windows for improved ventilation. A company catalog published ca. 1926-1927 offered only the barrel-roof style of diner, though a 1929 newspaper photograph indicates the company had begun to use the full-length monitor roofs by that date. [Ceccacci, MHC inventory form; Serving the World with Worcester Dining Cars] The Chadwick Square also retains many original interior features typically associated with diners from the late 1920s and 1930s, particularly the extensive use of tile, marble, and wood finishes. (end) Ralph's Chadwick Square Diner Name of Property 10.
Geographical Data Worcester County, Massachusetts County and State Acreage of Property - less than one acre UTM References (Place additional UTM references on a continuation sheet) 1202 268980 4684190 Easting Northing "Zone Easting Northing Verbal Boundary Description (Describe the boundaries of the property on a continuation sheet.) Boundary Justification (Explain why the boundaries were selected on a continuation sheet.) 3. Zone Easting Northing 4. Zone Easting - See continuation sheet Northing 11. Form Prepared By name/title. Kathleen Kelly Broomer, consultant, with Betsy Friedberg, NR Director, MHC organization Massachusetts Historical Commission_ date _October 30, 2003 street & number_220 Morrissey Boulevard _ telephone (617) 727-8470 city or town. Boston state MA _ zip code.
02125 Additional Documentation Submit the following items with the completed form: Continuation Sheets Maps A USGS map (7.5 or 15 minute series) indicating the property's location. A sketch map for historic districts and properties having large acreage or numerous resources. Photographs Representative black and white photographs of the property.
Additional items (Check with the SHPO or FPO for any additional items) Property Owner (Complete this item at the request of the SHPO or FPO.) name Ralph Moberly - Prescott Street Associates street & number 95 Prescott Street .telephone508-753-9543 city or town Worcester _ state_MA _ zip code 01613 Paperwork Reduction Act Statement: This information is being collected for applications to the National Register of Historic Places to nominate benettins for lisdingce viettre Natinal iisforic fres tv litop Apt, ais a, aed ded (6 U.S.C, 47 istings, Response to this request is required to obtain a Estimated Burden Statement: Public reporting burden for this form is estimated to average 18.1 hours per response including the time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining data, and completing and reviewing the form.
Direct comments regarding this burden estimate or any aspect of this form to the Chief, Administrative Services Division, National Park Service, P.O. Box 37127, Washington, DC 20013-7127; and the Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reductions Project (1024-0018), Washington, DC 20503.NPS Form 10-900 OMB No. 1024-0018 (Rev. 10-90) NPS Form 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 9/10 Page 1 OMB No. 1024-0018 The Diners of Massachusetts MPS Ralph's Chadwick Square Diner Worcester (Worcester Co.), MA 9. Major Bibliographical References Baeder, John. Diners. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1978. Diner Finder Deluxe: Massachusetts. Watertown, MA: Coffee Cup Publications, 1991. Gutman, Richard J. S. American Diner Then and Now. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993.
Massachusetts Historical Commission. Inventory of Historic and Archaeological Assets of the Commonwealth. Chadwick Square Diner (MHC #2137). Form prepared by Susan Ceccacci for Worcester Heritage Preservation Society, September 1983. -. Washburn and Moen Manufacturing Company North Works Historic District (NRDIS/NRMRA). National Register nomination. Listed 03/15/80. Pryor, William Harlan. "Postcards from the road." Classic Automobile, Fall 1997 (via www.classicautomobile.com). Sanborn fire insurance maps for Worcester: 1936 (corrected to 1949), 1978. Serving the World with Worcester Dining Cars (promotional brochure). Worcester, Mass.: Worcester Lunch Car Company, no date (ca. 1926-1927). American Antiquarian Society. Worcester directories (Sampson & Murdock, Polk's): 1928-1987. Worcester Lunch Car Company records, Worcester Historical Museum: Record Books, vol.
2, Account book of lunch car construction 1928-1931; Record Books, vol. 9, including file cards with service information ca. 1950s. Record Group 1998.163, box 2 of 3, folder for #660 Chadwick Diner [sic], Worcester. (end) 10. Geographical Data Verbal Boundary Description The boundary of the nominated property is shown on the accompanying detail of the City of Worcester assessors' map. Boundary Justification The boundary includes the parcel associated with the Chadwick Square Diner since its installation on the current site in 1979.
(end) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES EVALUATION/RETURN SHEET NOMINATION Chadwick Square Diner REQUESTED ACTION: PROPERTY NAME: MULTIPLE NAME: Diners of Massachusetts MPS STATE & COUNTY: MASSACHUSETTS, Worcester DATE RECEIVED: DATE OF 16TH DAY: DATE OF WEEKLY LIST: 10/14/03 11/21/03 REFERENCE NUMBER: 03001206 DATE OF PENDING LIST: 11/05/03 DATE OF 45TH DAY: 11/28/03 REASONS FOR REVIEW: APPEAL: N DATA PROBLEM: N LANDSCAPE: N LESS THAN 50 YEARS: Y OTHER: N PDIL: ERIOD: N PROGRAM UNAPPROVED: N REQUEST: N SAMPLE: SLR DRAFT: N NATIONAL N COMMENT WAIVER: N ACCEPT RETURN REJECT DATE ABSTRACT/ SUMMARY COMMENTS : Histrically and arckitecturally significant early 2074 centeiry diner, - DISCIPLINE Nistorian TELEPHONE - DATE 11/26/2003 DOCUMENTATION see attached comments Y/N see attached SLR Y/N BUCKLE UP ESHEBE DINEDINER VOTE POK RALPH 4576 RG) BURGERS DINE The piners of massachusetts MPS Ralph's Chadwick Square Diner 95 rear prescott Street Worcester (worcester County), mass.
KKBroomer Neg: MHC September 2001 ViNe NE Puoto l of 2 ROll 17 Neg 9 napple The Diners of massachusetts MPS Ralplis Chadwick Square Diner 95 rear Prescott Street worcester (worcester county), mass. Kxbroomer Neg: MHC September 2001 VICWN Phots 2of 2 Rall 17 Neg 4 FLACIDAN The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Massachusetts Historical Commission October 8, 2003 Ms. Carol Shull National Register of Historic Places Department of the Interior National Park Service 1201 Eye Street, NW Washington, DC 20005 RECEIVED Dear Ms. Shull: Enclosed please find the following nomination form: 2280 DCT | 4 2003 NAT RESISTEAL PAT SENVEANAS Ralph's Chadwick Square Diner, Worcester (Worcester), MA (The Diners of Massachusetts MPS) The nomination has been voted eligible by the State Review Board and has been signed by the State Historic Preservation Officer.
The owner of the property in the Certified Local Government community of Worcester were notified of pending State Review Board consideration 60 to 90 days before the meeting and were afforded the opportunity to comment. Sincerely, Betay triedley Betsy Friedberg National Register Director Massachusetts Historical Commission enclosure CC: Bruce Bunke, Chair, Worcester Historical Commission <athleen Broomer, Preservation Consultani Hon. Raymond Mariano, Mayor, City of Worcester Joanne Kennedy Valade, Worcester CLG Coordinator Preservation Worcester Prescott Street Associates, Ralph Moberly 220 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, Massachusetts 02125 (617) 727-8470 - Fax: (617) 727-5128 www.state.ma.us/sec/mhc
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