NETCA 2011 Howard Johnson's Commemorative Cars...

Wasn't their soda called "Mr Pipp"? 

 

Why do people continue to copy comments & photos of the post directly before theirs?   Just ask your question or make your comment.

       
       


There is only one last functioning Howard Johnson's and it is in Lake George, New York. Last year it was open seasonally but they are trying to make it a year round venture again.

Aren't there still some Hotels under the Howard Johnson name, or is that totally different?

 

(realizing they were not always paired, and the Lake George restaurant very well may be the last restaurant)

 

-Dave

       
       


I believe it is the last restaurant. I'm not sure about the hotels.

Got me curious enough to do a little googl'ing.

 

You are correct on the restaurant, it seems 2 others that survived until recently closed earlier this year (March or April for one in Lake Placid, NY, and July for one in Bangor, Maine).

 

The one I sort of remember eating at as a kid in the early 80's was somewhere near Kennedy Airport, probably on one of the roads right near where the Van Wyck and the Belt intersect.

 

The hotels survive, they are now under the Wyndham conglomerate(along with Days Inn, Super 8, etc.).  There are probably over 100 left in US and many other countries as well (China, Canada and Argentina all have quite a list).

 

Back to the original topic, they are nice TOFCs!   I didn't notice them when they were issued and I'm not sure I need one, but I wish Mike W the best in his search!

 

-Dave

 

 

 

 

 

 

To give you one more thing to be grumpy about.

The Hotels were separated from the restaurants years ago.  In the 70's Marriott bought the company and started closing all company owned restaurants.  All that was left were the franchised ones.  They banded together under the name Franchise Associates and chugged along...but with little cash to grow the brand.  

 

The original supplier was in Mass and lasted until the mid 2000's.  Hence the food still had the Howard Johnson's taste.  The Lake George restaurant carries the name but without the supplier the food is not the same.  

Mike:

 

Grzyboski's has one listed for sale:

 

https://www.grzyboskitrains.co...ward-johnson-trailer

 

Bob

 

 

I monitor all the NETCA cars on eBay.  They are all somewhat thinly traded but the HoJo's flatcar does get listed 3-4 times per year.  Hang in there and you'll get one.

 

Also, I'm not sure where you're located but, for obvious reasons, the best place to buy past NETCA commemorative cars is at a NETCA meet.  A pretty good variety are out on the tables most times.

 

HTH.

 

Steven J. Serenska

Another piece of Americana come to an end. Sad for a younger guy like myself that missed it.

I saw the one at Grzyboski's.  I am hoping NETCA will reply to me and say they have some left over.  That was the case for the Baked Beans K-Line S car made from marx tooling.

I just bought the Grzyboski one since it looked so cool. I remember Howard Johnson's "HoJo Cola" and fried clam dinners especially. They were at rest stops along the Pennsylvania Turnpike back in the 1950s when our family made its annual trek from Ohio to Reading, PA to visit my grandmother's family there.

 

Fond memories. We stayed at the Berkshire Hotel in downtown Reading and I especially liked going up to see the pagoda on a high hill above the city.

 

 

Though I have very little modern equipment on my layout, I may have to look for one of these, for nostalgic and personal history reasons. You see, I grew up in Quincy, MA, home of Howard Johnson's, and have learned, and been part of, the company's history over the years.

 

Set the way-back machine.

 

Young Howard Johnson was selling newspapers outside of the Wollaston train station, when in the colder weather he got the idea to sell hot coffee to the folks who were about to wait on the exposed platforms for their train into Boston. 

 

Young Mr. Johnson turned this into a brick-and-mortar business when he got a little older, opening a small pharmacy/soda fountain across from the station. But it was not just the commuters of this city just south of Boston that set Howard onto bigger things, but the stodgy moral authority of Boston's city government itself. 

 

Howard Johnsons had just successfully opened a second location, this time a sit-down restaurant near Wollaston Beach, when there was much uproar coming from the big city and their shutting down of Eugene O'Neill's play, Strange Interlude. After being "banned in Boston" the producers found a suitable theater just south, The Strand, in Quincy Center. Well, with all of the publicity surrounding the play, plus it being 5 hours long, with a dinner break, Howard secured a location in the ground level of the Granite Bank building just across the street. It opened in time to capture the guaranteed nightly dinner crowd.

 

The expansion idea had taken hold in Howard Johnson's heart. Although slowed by the great depression, he looked at transportation and destination routes to establish franchises. Orleans MA, on Cape Cod, was an early site, and when the states began to sell direct-access space off of their newly constructed turnpikes, Howard Johnson was well positioned to secure the rights, have a production system in place, and build the orange roof havens for early highway travelers. By the start of World War II, there were over 200 Howard Johnson's nationwide. In the postwar years, no other company was positioned as well to build in these areas and further develop the icon of the expanding federal highway system.

 

I went to grade school right behind the Howard Johnson's food processing center. Part of the land was donated to St. Ann's church, so they could open this school, and the company even built us a recreation building with bowling alley, and swimming pool! The smells were quite distinctive blowing from the factory across the playground (a paved lot, who needed anything more?) and none is more memorable than the days they must have be running pickled relish. To this day, the smell of relish takes me back to that place and time.

 

Oh yah, I need one of these. I'll look around the next NETCA show to see if they're on any tables.

 

Tim