City Diner is a photograph by Sarah Loft which was uploaded on August 3rd, 2017.
City Diner
This is a diner on Broadway in the upper Manhattan, New York neighborhood of Washington Heights. Diners are ubiquitous and numerous in New York City... more
by Sarah Loft
Title
City Diner
Artist
Sarah Loft
Medium
Photograph - Digitally Painted Photograph
Description
This is a diner on Broadway in the upper Manhattan, New York neighborhood of Washington Heights. Diners are ubiquitous and numerous in New York City and very much a part of our lives.
Per Wikipedia: Diners attract a wide spectrum of the local populations, and are generally small businesses. From the mid-twentieth century onwards, they have been seen as quintessentially American, reflecting the perceived cultural diversity and egalitarian nature of the country at large. Throughout much of the 20th century, diners, particularly in the Northeast, were often owned and operated by Greek-American immigrant families. The presence of Greek casual food, like gyros and souvlaki, on several diners' menus, testifies to this cultural link.
Diners frequently stay open 24 hours a day, especially in cities, and were once America's most widespread 24-hour public establishments, making them an essential part of urban culture, alongside bars and nightclubs; these two segments of nighttime urban culture often find themselves intertwined, as many diners get a good deal of late-night business from persons departing drinking establishments. Many diners were also historically placed near factories which operated 24 hours a day, with night shift workers providing a key part of the customer base. All this meant diners could serve as symbols of loneliness and isolation. Edward Hopper's iconic 1942 painting Nighthawks depicts a diner and its occupants, late at night. The diner in the painting is based on a real location in Greenwich Village, but was chosen in part because diners were anonymous slices of Americana, meaning that the scene could have been taken from any city in the country-and also because a diner was a place to which isolated individuals, awake long after bedtime, would naturally be drawn.
But as a rule, diners were always symbols of American optimism. Norman Rockwell made his 1958 painting, The Runaway, generically American by placing his subjects, a young boy and a protective highway patrolman, at the counter of an anonymous diner. In television and cinema (e.g. The Blob, Happy Days, Grease and Diner), diners and soda fountains have come to symbolize the period of prosperity and optimism in America in the 1950s. They are shown as the place where teenagers meet after school and as an essential part of a date. The television show Alice used a diner as the setting for the program, and one is often a regular feature in sitcoms such as Seinfeld. The diner's cultural influence continues today. Many non-prefab restaurants (including franchises like Denny's) have copied the look of 1950s diners for nostalgic appeal, while Waffle House uses an interior layout derived from the diner.
Manhattan was once known for its diners. The Moondance Diner was shipped to Wyoming to make room for development. Diners provide, in rather the same way that fast food chains do, a nationwide, recognizable, fairly uniform place to eat and assemble. The types of food served are likely to be consistent, especially within a region (exceptions being districts with large immigrant populations, in which diners and coffee shops will often cater their menus to those local cuisines), as are the prices charged. At the same time, diners have much more individuality than fast food chains; the structures, menus, and even owners and staff, while having a certain degree of similarity to each other, vary much more widely than the more rigidly standardized chain and franchise restaurants.
Note: The watermark will not appear on the print you purchase.
Featured in the Images That Excite You group, August 2017.
Uploaded
August 3rd, 2017
Statistics
Viewed 2,018 Times - Last Visitor from Ottawa, ON - Canada on 03/21/2024 at 4:06 PM
Colors
Embed
Share
More from Sarah Loft
Comments (17)
Angeles M Pomata
Superb photo, Sarah!! The bold constrasts crates an amazing mood that's just perfect for the subject. L/F
Bill Dussault
I love the lonely feeling this photo evokes. I know it is NY, but it could be anywhere. Great job.
Mitch Spence
This is a most interesting point of view, Sarah. Somehow I'm always captivated by the image of empty tables and the view from inside out, as I am here.
Beto Machado
LIke a journalist, like a writer, you get through your art touching ours feelings. City Dinner is a fantastic shoot.
Nancy Kane Chapman
This makes me miss New York....I love the diners, each one with a personality! F/L Great shot, Sarah.
Sarah Loft replied:
Thank you, Nancy! They're such a New York thing I can see how you could miss them.