Hot Coffee Coming Through: Durgin Park Restaurant, Boston, Massachusetts

Introduction and Sad News

"Hot coffee coming through!" That translated to, "Come on, get out of the way, I have these huge plates of food to take to a table." And huge plates was right. But sadly, the plates will be no more. The venerable Durgin Park Restaurant, a Boston fixture for 192 years, closed for good on Saturday, January 12, 2019. The logo over the door stated, "Established before you were born." Definitely true. And I recall printed on the menus words to the effect, "Your father ate here and his father, too." True in my case, as well. As noted in Restaurant Business, "Durgin-Park was generally regarded as the nation’s second-oldest restaurant, behind Boston’s Union Oyster House, which was founded in 1826. Durgin-Park opened a year later, while favorite local son John Quincy Adams was president of the United States."

1970s or 1980s photograph at the ground floor entry to Durgin Park (from Forbes magazine). I recall the lady in the middle row with the puffy black hair.

Some Memories

I first ate at Durgin Park in 1965 or 1966 with my dad. He told me he was introduced to the restaurant by his dad. Grandpa died in 1919, so this may not be correct, but certainly is not out of the realm of possibility. But my father had definitely patronized Durgin Park on and off for decades because he recalled when whale steak was on the menu. I think bear steak predated him.

Typical 1976 lunch crowd at Durgin Park. You shared your table with politicians, workmen, tourists, gangsters - almost anyone, and everyone was cheerful.

The "Hot coffee coming through" ladies, 1976 (Leica IIIC camera, 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens, Kodachrome film)

By 2008, the starched white waiter outfits were gone

When I first moved to Massachusetts, the sales tax had just been enacted. The politicians promised that it would never exceed 3 percent. Well, you know how that turned out. But restaurant meals below $1.00 were exempt. Therefore, at midday, Durgin Park offered a 95 cent luncheon, which included a cup of soup, cornbread, a hearty entree, such as yankee pot roast, and a cup of coffee. During the summers, I taught sailing at Community Boating on the Charles River and often walked over to the Faneuil Hall area to lunch at Durgin Park. Even then, a Dollar was a reasonable price for a hearty meal. But as inflation ravaged our economy in the 1970s, the soup and coffee disappeared from the 95 cent lunch and the choice of entrees was reduced. Finally, the 95 cent lunch became a fond memory. Sigh....

Andy and Vico digging in to beans, Yankee pot roast, and scallops

In the 1960s and early-1970s, the lunch crowd was so large, the line for a seat often stretched out the door and along the side of the building. If you waited until about 12:30, the first group of diners, who had been seated at 11:30, were moving out, and you could get a seat in a reasonable time. Another trick in the old days was to buy a drink at the bar. Then you could ascend to the dining rooms on the second floor via a bar-only stair and bypass some of the crowd. But I do not remember patrons drinking spirits in the dining room. Maybe that was restricted to the bar area.

From the 1972-1974 television show, Banacek

The entry hallway and bar were on the ground floor. The dining rooms were on the second floor, accessed by a narrow stair on which the line would stand and wait (eventually they had to wait at the bottom of the stairs). The chief waiter, at the top of the stairs, would survey the dining room and wave groups of two or four to available places at the long, family-style tables. You shared a table with whomever was already there. The kitchens were on the third floor. In the 1970s, it was not uncommon to look out the window and see a quarter cow being hoisted via winch to the third floor.

Young Boston beauty awaiting her chowdah and Yankee pot roast

Parking in downtown Boston was always a problem, even in the 1960s. Back then, the Southeast Expressway was a gruesome elevated concrete roadway carrying I-93 through Boston. This route is now subterranean, thanks to the Central Artery/Tunnel Project or the Big Dig. Most Boston citizens despised the old Southeast Expressway because it cut the heart of the city in half and was a visual eyesore. However, it offered inexpensive parking underneath close to Quincy Market. It was a bit spooky, but we were never mugged, and it offered a short walk to Durgin Park.

Durgin Park Brochure

My wife found a brochure in her recipe box with the famous Boston baked bean recipe as well as a short history from Collier's Magazine (date not specified). Click the link above to see the .pdf file or see the pages individually below (click to expand each page).

The End

Before mid-1970s Bicentennial redevelopment of Quincy Market (see the next article), Durgin Park, Union Oyster House, and a few other establishments were the only lunch spots in this part of Boston. After redevelopment, there were many more choices. Durgin Park soldiered on, but by the mid-2000s, fewer customers came. It did not have a "theme" as is popular in restaurants today. Traditional hearty New England cuisine prepared from scratch ingredients was not trendy. I remember how the menu had changed by the mid-2000s, with vegetarian offerings. They even dropped smelts and mackerel from the menu. How can a true New England eatery not offer mackerel? Or smelts? Modern Americans are too wimpy to eat mackerel? Finally, a 192-year tradition ended. In January, several New England friends sent me the sad news that "Hot coffee coming through" was no more.

The 1976 frames are from Kodachrome film exposed with my 1949 Leica IIIC camera with a 5cm ƒ/2 Summitar lens, which I am still using. I scanned the slides with a Plustek 7600i film scanner using Silverfast Ai software.

The Mississippi Delta 29: Baptist Town, Greenwood (B&W film)

Stevens Avenue, Baptist Town, Greenwood, Mississippi

Shotgun houses, Stevens Avenue, Greenwood, Mississippi

Baptist Town is a historically African-American neighborhood east of downtown Greenwood. According to the Mississippi Blues Trail:

Baptist Town, established in the 1800s in tandem with the growth of the local cotton industry, is one of Greenwood’s oldest African American neighborhoods. Known for its strong sense of community, it is anchored by the McKinney Chapel M.B. Church and a former cotton compress. In blues lore Baptist Town is best known through the reminiscences of David “Honeyboy” Edwards, who identified it as the final residence of Robert Johnson, who died just outside Greenwood in 1938.

I was unaware of this historic neighborhood until a faculty friend at Mississippi Valley State University showed me around.

Baptist Town, from MSBluestrail.org

West Pelican Street, Baptist Town (click any photograph to enlarge)

While my friend chatted with some shopkeeper friends, I wandered around with my Hasselblad and tripod. The residents seem comfortable with tourists, and most waved and said hi. Signs related to the Blues traditions have been erected, like this one about the great artist Robert Johnson, who died in 1938.

214 Young Street, Baptist Town

214 Young Street, Baptist Town, 80mm Planar lens

204 Young Street Baptist Town, 80mm Planar lens

The reception center on Young Street was closed, so I could not check inside.

Shotgun house, Stevens Avenue

Stevens Avenue is a major street through the neighborhood, lined with these little traditional shotgun houses. I have tried to document remaining ones in other towns in Mississippi. Many have disappeared in the last few decades from all around the United States.

301 McCain Street, Baptist Town

Mr. Chow's grocery store is just east of Baptist Town. It is no longer open.

Ditch off Pelican Street, Baptist Town

View west to downtown Greenwood, W. Pelican Street

Baptist Town is an interesting place and an architectural example of early 20th century housing in reasonably authentic condition. I will return some day when the light is softer, maybe with color film.

These photographs were taken on Kodak Panatomic-X film (expired in 1988), exposed at EI=20. I used a Hasselblad 501CM camera with 80mm and 50mm lenses, all tripod-mounted. I scanned the film with a Minolta Scan Multi medium format film scanner controlled by SilverFast Ai software.

At the Port of Vicksburg (B&W film)

Many people today forget (or did not know) that Vicksburg is still a major river shipping port. Unlike the 1800s, when the river passed right in front of town and riverboats unloaded at the waterfront, most port activity today happens at the industries and refineries at Haining and Industrial Roads. The river activity is out of sight unless you specifically go there.

Yazoo Canal and Port of Vicksburg in 1997, view northwest, Nikon N90 camera

In the 1997 photograph above, the aircraft is over North Washington Street and the view is to the northwest. The curved road is Haining. The industries are to its left or south, while the land to the right is mostly forest and some farmland. The port is on artificial land and is high enough to be above flood waters. But the forest to the north is hardwood bottomland and does occasionally flood. The road turning off to the right (upper left of the photograph) is Industrial Drive. You can drive out on the roads (I ride my bicycle here regularly), but you cannot enter the facilities or walk out to the water's edge. This is a contrast to the 1980s, when security was much more casual and you could walk around more freely.

City of Vicksburg water treatment plant, view approx. north, Nikon F3 camera

We will take a quick tour from east to west

Former Anderson Tully wood processing plant, now Vicksburg Forest Products LLC (click any picture to enlarge)

The wood mill is surrounded by its own levee. In the high water of 2017, we canoed along the levee. The plant inside remained in operation.

Vicksburg Southern Railroad (VSOR) tracks

City of Vicksburg water wells

The city's water wells are north of Haining road. As of January 2019, the woods here were flooded.

Mississippi Lime, 1543 Haining Road

Ergon BioFuels, 1833 Haining Road

Ergon BioFuels refined corn into ethanol, I assume mostly for use in motor fuels. The plant was scheduled to close in December of 2018, but I am not sure of the status. Often, tens of 18-wheeler semi trucks would park along the road, awaiting their turns to enter the plant and unload corn. The blackbirds liked the spilled corn kernels.

Vicksburg Southern Railroad (VSOR) tracks, view west

Ergon Ethanol

Rail cars can access all of the port via Vicksburg Southern Railroad's (VSOR) tracks. In the last couple of years, workmen have been replacing ties and adding new bedding. The tank cars above are at the ethanol plant. The refinery has a bright orange shunting truck/locomotive to push rail cars around. It has rubber tires so it can drive across a parking lot.

Falco Lime

This mountain of lime, which looks somewhat like a sand dune, grows and shrinks depending on the number of trucks that come and haul the material away. The rails along here have also been repaired recently. I am not sure if rail cars bring in the lime or if it comes from barges.

This is a crop from the original full-size TIFF file of the negative above. I am impressed with the resolution of this little 1957-vintage 50mm f/3.5 Color-Skopar lens. This was hand-held with a yellow filter.

The 2018 photographs are from Ilford Delta 100 film exposed through my 1957-vintage Voigtländer Vito BL camera with 50mm f/3.5 Color-Skopar lens, most with a yellow filter. This is a coated Tessar-type lens with 4 elements in 3 groups. It is unit focus, meaning the entire lens group moves as a unit (as opposed to front element focus). You can read my review of the Vito BL at the 35MMC blog. It has remarkable optical quality for such a simple optical design. I scanned the film with a Plustek 7600i film scanner.

Voigtländer Vito BL camera

From the Archives: Tourist Pics of Vicksburg, Mississippi 1985-1992

While looking through a box of old negatives, I saw a film from my 1985 job-hunting trip. At the time, I lived in Houston, Texas - absolutely flat and topographically boring. But Vicksburg was an interesting place, with its history and its setting on the bluffs above the river. Not knowing if I would move here, I took snapshots around town. This will be a quick tour of some of the places a new resident might see. 

Driving from the east, many visitors first see the Big Muddy from the Mississippi Visitor Center. The scene is timeless - these photographs could be 1985 or 2019. I had driven here from the west and had therefore crossed on the I-20 bridge from Louisiana. In the late-1980s, the old bridge was still open to car traffic.

Walking on the Old Mississippi River Bridge, Kodak Stretch camera

By 1990, as I recall, the old bridge had been closed to traffic, but pedestrians could walk on it. This is a negative from a Kodak Stretch, which was a single-use (i.e., disposable) camera which purported to be a panorama format. That was deceptive: it had a 2-element, 25mm f/12 lens lens that projected onto a narrow strip of the 35mm frame, about 13×36 mm. However, I am surprised how well the Kodak Gold 200 film did with this crude lens. The APS film system also tried this fraud: the so-called panorama was just a thin strip in the middle of the frame. The entire frame was exposed but the processing lab automatically printed the thin strip.

Mississippi River north of the old bridge, Kodak Stretch camera

Mississippi River Bridges, Vicksburg, Fuji GW690II camera

The view from the overlook north of the Visitor Center is different now because the Ameristar Casino is in the foreground at the river's edge.

Mississippi River, Kodak VPS film, Rollei 35S camera, 40mm Sonnar lens

This is the bend in the Mississippi where the Yazoo Canal comes in from the north.

June 1991 view of former Vicksburg Hospital, Fujichrome 50, 4×5" Tachihara camera, 180mm ƒ/5.6 Caltar IIN lens

View north from Vicksburg Hospital, Ektar 25 film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm lens

In the 1980s, the old Vicksburg hospital was a concrete shell, standing where the police department is now located in a modern building. The view north to the City Hall and Post Office was rather boring. The architectural abomination on the right is now BancorpSouth Bank, but I am not sure what it was called in the 1980s.

Continuing north, this is a view of Clay Street at the intersection with Monroe. The Aeolian Apartments in the upper center were still rented as apartments in 1992.

This is Walnut Street looking north. I am not sure which of these houses are still extant.

Washington Street view south, Rollei 35S, 40mm Sonnar lens

Grove Street from Washington Street, Rollei 35S, 40mm Sonnar lens

Velchoff's Corner Restaurant & Miller's Still Lounge formerly occupied the building at the corner of Washington and Grove Streets (Summerlin and Summerlin 1995). I only ate there once and cannot remember when it closed. Look up Grove Street and you can see a car repair shop on the left. That building is gone, and again, I do not recall when it was demolished. The lot on the left was once occupied by the Masonic Temple, which was torn down in the mid- or late-1970s.

In front of the 61 Coffeehouse, view north, December 2018, Ilford Delta 100 film, Voigtlander Vito BL camera

61 Coffeeshop, 35 mm f/3.5 Super-Takumar lens, Pentax Spotmatic camera

Today, the corner building houses Attic Gallery and the 61 Coffeehouse. Daniel Boone runs 61 and provides the best coffee in town (except at my house....). And he employs charming coffee ladies. Look north along Washington Street and you see a building in the distance. Decades ago, this was a club and various other businesses.

Washington Street, Kodachrome 25 slide, Pentax Spotmatic camera, 150mm f/4 Super-Takumar lens

No. 913 Washington Street was once an automobile showroom. The second building, possibly a 7-Up bottling plant at one time, was unceremoniously demolished by City of Vicksburg in 2007.

Washington Street, Fujichrome 50 film, 4×5" B&J camera, 20" lens (presently the site of the M/V Mississippi on land)

The 1985 photographs are from Kodak VPS color negative film using a Rollei 35S camera. Its 40mm f/2.8 Sonnar lens was top quality for such a compact camera.

References

Summerlin, C. and Summerlin, V., 1995.  Traveling the Trace: A Complete Tour Guide to the Historic Natchez Trace from Nashville to Natchez. Rutledge Hill Press, Nashville, Tennessee.

UPDATE 2021. Here is a photograph on the Mississippi River Bridge during the 2021 Bricks & Spokes bike ride. This is one of the few times that the bridge is open to the public. It is fun to bike over the river.