History
The diner was established in 1941 by John O'Rourke, who later brought the 1946 Mountain View diner car that anchored the diner's distinctive appearance into Middletown. John's nephews, John and Brian bought the diner in 1976. In 1986, due to corrupted business practices John sold his half share of the diner to his cousin Brian.
On August 31, 2006, O'Rourke's Diner suffered tremendous damage from a fire that broke out after a hamburger steamer was left on overnight. Because the diner did not have fire insurance, fundraising efforts were launched to cover the estimated $350,000 cost of repairs. By June 2007, $180,000 had been raised and preparations for reconstruction were underway. On February 11, 2008, following successful renovations which included assistance from the local community and Wesleyan University, O'Rourke's was reopened at 5:00 am.
Read more about this topic: O'Rourke's Diner
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)