Dorchester Illustration no. 2464 Englewood Diner
The Englewood Diner stood in Peabody Square from the 1940s until the 1970s, when it was replaced by the Englewood Apartment building in the point between Dorchester Avenue and Talbot Avenue. Its colors at that time were yellow (or creamy yellow) with red lettering.
Later the Englewood operated in the parking lot of the shopping center on Morrissey Boulevard in front of the former Dorchester Pottery building, before moving to Maine about 1979. It is now completely restored with the name Red Line diner and is located in Brighton in an up-scale office park.
From the March 2001 Ashmont Outlook (the newsletter of the Ashmont Hill Association):
“Englewood Diner Goes to Hollywood (sort of)
“Long a Peabody Square landmark, the 1941 Englewood Diner was relocated when the elderly housing was built in the square, and it has been moved from place to place as it has changed ownership over the years. Its current owner purchased it intending to add it onto his home in Holden. But the diner was destined for greatness: After long negotiations with Dreamworks SKG, the diner is being hauled to Chicago, where it will be used for one day of filming in a Tom Hanks movie (still untitled). The diner will then go back to Holden. Cost to Dreamworks: $40,000 to the owner and $16,000 to the hauling company. (as reported in the Boston Globe, February 4, 2001).”
A September 2002 online article from the American Diner Museum (http://www.dinermuseum.org/articles/article6.php) says, among many other things about the diner’s travels to movie fame:
“The Englewood has been called the “most moved non-lunch wagon type diner in history.” It originally operated in Dorchester, a suburb of Boston, and closed in the late 1970s. It operated once again in Dorchester for about five years in the late ’80s, but in the interim, traveled in Massachusetts to storage spots in Cambridge, Boston, Fitchburg, Framingham, Natick and Ashburnham. Since diners were originally made to be moved, the Englewood’s most recent journey to Chicago and back to New England gives it the proud honor of the title.”
The movie, which starred Tom Hanks and Paul Newman, was ultimately titled “The Road to Perdition.” The diner was an anachronism in the movie: while it was built in 1941, the movie, which was about gangsters in Chicago, was placed in 1931.
The diner stood in Peabody Square about where the firemen park their cars adjacent to the elderly housing (which is appropriately called the Englewood Apartments). Many people remember the diner with fondness and would like to bring it back home to Peabody Square…one way or another.
For photos of the restored diner check out