Posted on 12/09/2014 11:58:47 PM PST by Impala64ssa
The Red Apple Rest opened in 1931, in Southfields, N.Y., and quickly became a place where people stopped to fill up their cars and their stomachs on the way to the hotels and bungalow colonies in the Catskills. It survived economic downturns, competing businesses, and the new highways that lured drivers away. By the time the restaurant closed its doors in 1984, it had become a legend for generations of diners. In her new memoir, Elaine Freed Lindenblatt, daughter of Big Apple’s founder Reuben Freed, shares her memories of the restaurant’s rise and fall.
By 1955, after nearly a quarter-century of operation, the restaurant had developed into an over a million-customer-a-year motorists’ mecca. It served perhaps twenty thousand people on a Sunday in peak season. During the weeks that the bungalows opened and New York City schools dismissed for the summer, one could barely get inside the door, let alone reach the counter to order or find a seat.
In the immediate post-Thruway period, sales fell to about one-half. However, the novelty of this new route wore off. “Sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler,” as Robert Frost puts it in his poem “The Road Not Taken,” summed up the ambivalence of drivers. Disenchanted with the monotonously sterile superhighway, not to mention its tolls, many missed the variety of services offered by Route 17—in food, fuel, lodgings, points of interest—and with the widening and improving of the road, chose to return. The intangible pull of nostalgia, too, wherein the Red Apple was tied to happy family outings, certainly had a role in that decision. People were loyal to their fondest memories.
(Excerpt) Read more at tabletmag.com ...
Location location location !
When autonomy is returned to the states — as it must be, the one-size-fits-all socialist federal government resigned to the dung heap of history — we’ll again see places like this.
My family had a mandatory standing order to stop and eat at the Red Apple Rest any time we were driving past it - mostly from Brooklyn to my Aunt’s house in Monticello, NY. This was during the 1960’s and 70’s. A tradition I tried to follow even into the 80s.
Back in 1993 I had occasion to drive by on a trip to Watertown, NY and I brought my camcorder. I got these shots of the place, which was still open 24 hours at the time, under the second owner.
This was a landmark for hikers in adjoining Harriman State Park; sad how that stretch of Route 17 in NY kind of withered after the Thruway was built (though there are still some nice areas up there).
Advocates are fighting to prevent casinos from being built in nearby Tuxedo NY, pointing how many places didn’t benefit at all from the prosperity promised by them.
To be honest, the Thruway was a huge improvement over the narrow, winding Route 17.
It is a shame how many of those businesses declined after the construction of the Thruway; I hike in Harriman State Park, and a few years back stopped at a roadside place with the wife and kids. It was like stepping back in time thirty years; the fries were brought to the table in little cardboard “cars” (1950s designs), and you’d never know you were only about an hour north of NYC.
What does state vs. Federal authority have to do with this story?
The guys on American Pickers would kill for the apple sign.
You have no idea (OK, maybe you do) how comforting it was starting that clip and the FIRST THING you hear is Bob Grant doing a Dial-A-Mattress spot (leave off the last S for Savings!).
Thanks for sharing. Sit down phone booths, that’s something you’ll never see again. Had a rush of childhood flashbacks on that one.
“The guys on American Pickers would kill for the apple sign.”
The short fat guy with the beard would probably kill his own mother for it, I swear that guy would jack his own granddad for a quarter.
LOL
I’d bet the guys at Gas Monkey garage are drooling over those cars. But they are probably piles of rust by this time. NY winters are rough on cars. Salted roads kill cars.
There were wonderful places like this... .before I84 was built in New York, there used to be on Route 6 a hotel called Hotelon the Mountain...what a place. iI still love to find local places to eat....
I used to commute for work from Highland Mills to Suffern for a brief time in the 80’s. Route 17 was a much more interesting route instead of the Thruway’s monotony. I used to notice this mostly deserted classic landmark and wonder about its history.
I liked to imagine it in its day with the hurly burly of a bustling clientele and mourn for the people that are gone and the Catskill era that is gone forever. One could almost still see the spectral cars parked. I suppose I have an easily activated imagination!
At any rate, many thanks for the post.
When autonomy is returned to the states — as it must be, the one-size-fits-all socialist federal government resigned to the dung heap of history — we’ll again see places like this.
<><><><
I’m interested in how you see this as a socialist thing. Was the building of the interstate highway system a function of socialism? and once the states no longer get that money from the Fed, that interstate system collapses from lack of money for upkeep? And then all the mom and pop places reopen?
I actually kind of thought it was self-evident. Our present culture promulgates uniformity, not individuality. Better for keeping the sheeple in line. It used to be when you drove from state to state you’d find in each of them unique things by the barrel-full. Now what you get is pretty much an endless stream of McStripMalls and chain fast food. When individuality is again prized, we might again see cool places popping up all over.
Great vid! The late, great Bob Grant on the radio was a nice touch.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.