The Blue Sky Diner

An unassuming diner on the corner of 49th Avenue and 21st Street seems out of the ordinary in the skyscraper-dominated area of Long Island City. Consider it a time capsule from 1954; faux leather booth seating, stainless-steel trimmings, marbled lunch counters, all the furnishings of a Mountain View Company-built diner. Classic menu items such as greasy cheeseburgers and somewhat stale coffee were served daily to patrons for 43 years until its closure in 1997.

Post-closure, it would be known by titles, correlating to who owned it at the time. To rattle off a few of these titles: Ocean Diner, The Golden Fountain, Skyline Diner, and Magasin Wells Diner. The latter had been the most successful in comparison to previous reopenings, serving dishes of Quebec-regional cuisine. In a response to lack of business or a rent increase, the owners would hold their last lunch service sometime between the 1st and 27th of September 2011. Relocating their place of business elsewhere, handing off the former diner to the next-door Adelfia Bar & Grill.

At the time of purchase, the bar had been undergoing renovations of its own. So would the diner, mainly to blend the aesthetics of both buildings. Stripping the red Blue Sky banner that wrapped around the exterior into a striped black-and-white pattern. Further work would be renovating the interior, removing the patterned titles in favor of desaturating everything in an off-white. For some reason, unbeknownst to the public, construction work at the site would be halted in 2013. The remnants of a failed renovation remain, as boxes weighed with construction materials occupy part of the space.