Kullman Dining Car Company, established in Newark, New Jersey in 1927, originally manufactured diners. The company expanded and later became the Kullman Building Corporation. It relocated to Avenel and finally to Clinton Township(with corporate offices in Lebanon) and over the years production grew to include prefabricated housing, dormitories, prisons, schools, banks, equipment buildings of cellular communications towers. It also built the first pre-fabricated United States Embassy in Guinea-Bissau in West Africa. [2] [3] The company is known for incorporating the use of new materials, such as stainless steel and formica, as they were developed and applying technologies developed through construction of diners to other buildings and is credited with introducing the term accelerated construction [4] [5] The company re-organized in bankruptcy and Kullman Industries went out off business in 2011. [6] XSite Modular (www.xsitemodular.com), a company formed by the management team that left prior to Kullman going out of business, now owns all the Kullman Intellectual Property purchased at auction. [7]
There are several diners in New Jersey built by the company still in operation, notably the Tick Tock Diner in Clifton, New Jersey, the Menlo Park Diner in Edison, [2] the Little Falls Diner in Little Falls, China 46 in Ridgefield, White Rose System diner in Roselle, and USA Country Diner in Windsor. [8]
Poirier's Diner is on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Providence, Rhode Island. The Munson Diner, originally located on Eleventh Avenue in Manhattan was relocated in 2005 to Liberty, New York, and listed on NRHP in 2006. [9] [10] Sam's Diner in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. [11]
The company, as late as the 2000, brought on line new diner designs, including one recalling the industries early affiliation with railroad cars. [12] The Blue Comet was a named passenger train operated by Central Railroad of New Jersey from 1929 to 1941 between the Jersey City and Atlantic City.
In 1994, Kullman built a United States embassy building at its plant in Avenel and shipped it to Bissau, Guinea-Bissau. It was the first construction of an American embassy in the US. Other embassy projects followed in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan and Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. All were, built, shipped, and assembled by American personnel with security clearances, enabling the State Department avoid security risks sometimes encountered with on-site construction in foreign countries. [4]
A franchise in Germany affiliated with Kullman was established in 1997, and since has opened a number of restaurants in a number of cities such as Berlin, Kaiserslautern, Ludwigsburg and Regensburg. Called Sam Kullman's Diner, they are housed in diners built by the namesake and imported to bring the American diner experience to Germany. [13]
Avenel is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located within Woodbridge Township, in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the CDP's population was 17,011.
A diner is a small restaurant found predominantly in the Northeastern, Southeastern, and Midwestern United States, as well as in other parts of the US, Canada, Serbia and parts of Western Europe. Diners offer a wide range of foods, mostly American cuisine, a casual atmosphere, and, characteristically, a combination of booths served by a waitstaff and a long sit-down counter with direct service, in the smallest simply by a cook. Many diners have extended hours, and some along highways and areas with significant shift work stay open for 24 hours.
Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) is a 13.8-mile (22.2 km) rapid transit system in the northeastern New Jersey cities of Newark, Harrison, Jersey City, and Hoboken, as well as Lower and Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is operated as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. PATH trains run around the clock year round; four routes serving 13 stations operate during the daytime on weekdays, while two routes operate during weekends, late nights, and holidays. Its tracks cross the Hudson River through century-old cast iron tubes that rest on the river bottom under a thin layer of silt. It operates as a deep-level subway in Manhattan and the Jersey City/Hoboken riverfront; from Grove Street in Jersey City to Newark, trains run in open cuts, at grade level, and on elevated track.
North River is an alternative name for the southernmost portion of the Hudson River in the vicinity of New York City and northeastern New Jersey in the United States. The entire watercourse was known as the North River by the Dutch in the early seventeenth century; the term fell out of general use for most of the river's 300+ mile course during the early 1900s. However the name remains in very limited use as an artifact among history-inclined local mariners and others and on some nautical charts and maps. The term is also used for infrastructure on and under the river, such as the North River piers, North River Tunnels, and the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant.
The Fodero Dining Car Company (1933–1981) was a diner manufacturer located in Newark and later Bloomfield, New Jersey. It was founded by Italian immigrant Joseph Fodero, who formed the company after constructing diners with P. J. Tierney Sons and Kullman Industries.
1 Wall Street Court is a residential building in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. The 15-story building, designed by Clinton and Russell in the Renaissance Revival style, was completed in 1904 at the intersection of Wall, Pearl, and Beaver Streets.
West Side Diner, formerly Poirier's Diner, is a historic restaurant at 1380 Westminster Street in Providence, Rhode Island. The diner was built in 1947 by Kullman Dining Car Company, and is a typical Art Deco streamlined stainless steel structure. It is one of two surviving Kullman diners in the state. The diner was originally located at 579-581 Atwells Avenue, an industrial area, where it operated for many years. The diner closed in 1999.
The Munson Steamship Line, frequently shortened to the Munson Line, was an American steamship company that operated in the Atlantic Ocean primarily between U.S. ports and ports in the Caribbean and South America. The line was founded in 1899 as a freight line, added passenger service in 1919, and went out of business in 1937.
The Deluxe Town Diner is an historic diner in Watertown, Massachusetts.
The Road Island Diner is a rare classic Streamline Moderne 60' x 16' Art Deco diner car restaurant located in the remote mountain city of Oakley, Utah in the United States. It was prefabricated as diner # 1107 in 1939 at the Elizabeth, New Jersey factory of the Jerry O'Mahony Diner Company.
The Central Diner, also called Paula's Kitchen and formerly known as The Elmwood Diner, Liberty Elm Diner, Jenn's Elmwood Diner, Ole Elmwood Diner, or Worcester Lunch Car Company Diner #806, is a historic Worcester Lunch Car Company diner at 777 Elmwood Avenue in Providence, Rhode Island.
The Empire Diner is a restaurant in New York City that launched a vogue for upscale retro diners, and whose Art Moderne exterior became an iconic image in numerous films and television programs.
Munson Diner is a historic diner located at Liberty in Sullivan County, New York. It was manufactured in 1945 by the Kullman Dining Car Company of Lebanon, New Jersey. It has a riveted steel frame and exterior of stainless steel and porcelain enamel. It has a long, rectangular form, 16 feet wide by 50 feet long. The interior has a plan typical of the diners of the 1940s and 1950s. It was moved from West 49th Street and 11th Avenue, New York City, to Liberty in 2005.
The Jerry O'Mahony Diner Company of Elizabeth, New Jersey, was a manufacturer of roadside diners from 1917 to 1952. The company produced some 2,000 of the long, narrow, primarily metal buildings, perhaps more than any other firm. Prefabricated in a factory and trucked to their locations, the diners resemble and are often confused with actual railroad rolling stock. The company's motto was "In our line, we lead the world".
Miss Albany Diner is a historic diner in Albany, New York, built in 1941 and located at 893 Broadway, one of the oldest streets in Albany. Used as a set for the 1987 film Ironweed, which starred Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 2000.
Rosie's Diner is located in Cedar Springs, Michigan. The dining car originally opened during the 1940s in Little Ferry, New Jersey, as the Silver Dollar Diner. After multiple commercials were filmed in the diner for Bounty paper towels with a fictional character named Rosie the Waitress, the diner was renamed Rosie's. Previously offered to the Smithsonian Institution, the restaurant was sold in the 1990s to a Michigan artist who had the building moved to its current location next to another diner. A third diner was later moved to the site from Fulton, New York. A series of replicas were built as part of a chain of restaurants in the Denver area.
The Triangle Diner is an American diner in Winchester, Virginia. It was built in 1948 by the Jerry O'Mahony Diner Company of Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Silk City Diners was a division of the Paterson Wagon Company, later known at Paterson Vehicle Company, established by Everett Abbott Cooper and based in Paterson, New Jersey, which produced about 1,500 diners from 1926 until 1966. Each was tagged with the year and order in which it was built; for example, 5607 would be the seventh diner manufactured in 1956. Several have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).
Tierney Dining Cars was an American brand of lunch wagons at the beginning of the 20th century. Its origins can be traced to 1895, when the business founder Patrick J. Tierney began to build truck-based cars modeled after railroad dining cars. This eventually resulted in a business that manufactured prefabricated diners, which was incorporated in 1922 and ceased trading in 1933.
Poirier’s Diner is a prefabricated diner car, built by the Kullman Dining Car Company of Harrison, New Jersey