Scobee Diner: A Lament

Maybe I am a sentamentalist at heart, all previous denials to the contrary. Maybe I do look askance at what is mistakenly called progress.

Today is the final day of Scobee's existence. If you, like me, grew up on the peninsula of West Egg, you too would have spent long hours sitting in the vinyl covered booths of my increasingly distant adolescence. I should have known things would never be the same the moment they removed the jukeboxes.

Diners seem to be disappearing from the landscape all over the five boroughs. Where else can one go at three in the morning and sit with a plate of french fries for two hours? The last diner closing that made me sad was the long lost Astor Riviera. It used to be where that giant Starbucks on Astor Place now sits. I guess that's the thing that has changed the face of this country and now finally the city more than anything: the loss of privately owned businesses. But that's a rant for another day.



So let's all lift a gravy covered french fry and salute the New York City diners of our youth! Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Manhattan and The Bronx! Alas! Alas!