Steve Repucci had decided to try living outside of Massachusetts and moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It was just a month or so into using that first camera when the second key event happened. The first couple of months I tested my wings by shooting scenic photos, etc. a camera similar to what I used to take that first Diner photograph So my brother and I alternated using this camera for around 9 months before I decided I needed my own camera and sold him my half. My friend and former co-worker Scott Drown was selling a used Mamiya 1000 DTL that he had been shooting with for a few years. So the first of two key events leading me to take that first diner photo occurred sometime in the Summer of 1980, when I co-purchased my first 35mm camera along with my older brother Steve. As 1980 began, I had been toying with the idea of getting into photography after being exposed to it by Steve Repucci who had been shooting 35mm photos for a number of years. Soon, the task of finding a diner to have breakfast determined the direction of the road-trip.Īll through the 1970s, I had owned one or two Kodak Instamatic cameras and never seriously looked at photography as a hobby. My pal, Steve Repucci and I started taking Sunday morning road-trips around the area and the first stop along the way was a local diner for breakfast. Myself and my friends could be found there, day or night! So I can safely say that diners became part of my DNA, a constant throughout my life and by 1979, I started thinking about them in an expanded view. Later on during high school as well as years after graduating, Carroll’s was the go-to meeting place that was open 24 hours a day. Carroll’s Diner, 101 Main Street – Medford, Massachusetts I also recall after Easter Morning Mass going for breakfasts with my family to Carroll’s Colonial Dining Car on Main Street, a large “L” shaped diner delivered in the early 60s that was a brand new replacement for a smaller stainless steel diner that the Carroll family had operated previously in the city from 1948, that itself was a replacement for an even earlier diner started in 1929. Bobbie’s Diner, 33 Mystic Avenue – Medford, Massachusetts colorized image of the Star Lite Diner,ģ83 Mystic Avenue – Medford, Massachusetts Victoria Diner, 1024 Massachusetts Avenue – Boston, Massachusetts I recall going with my dad to a few local diners like Bobbie’s Diner and the Star Lite Diner, both on Mystic Avenue in our hometown as well as the Victoria Diner in Boston. Now granted, I have always had a fascination with diners that goes back to my early childhood in Medford, Massachusetts in the late 50s and early 60s. Who knew that a tentative single 35mm photo taken on this same date 40 years ago in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, would lead me into a multi-decade mission to document diners (at last count 875 in my database) throughout the Eastern United States with my photographs. This year November 29th falls on a Sunday.
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