Dead of Nite:The Nite Owl diner of Fall River, Massachusetts

There's a cute-as-a-button diner in the working class city of Fall River, Massachusetts that's been sitting unused for an astounding 11 years. Diner aficionados will tell you The Nite Owl, on Pleasant Street, is a custom-built DeRaffle model dating back to 1956. It replaced a smaller Worcester Lunch Car (#786 if you're keeping score) that was on the same property perhaps since 1945 (thanks, Larry Cultrera). There's a photo here of the two side by side (along with a really great article about diner historian Richard Gutman). And the great photo realist painter John Baeder painted the Nite Owl in 1991 (looky here). One pictures some of the clientele over the years...Owl Pacino, Owl Gore, Owl Roker, the Rev.Owl Sharpton, Muhammed Owli, The Who. How sad that this comfy place went out of business, yet encouraging that it hasn't been demolished. Any Quixotic diner fans out there ready to give it a go and take it over? That would be a real hoot.

Season's Greetings from Lizzie Borden, Al Mac's and Fall River, Mass.

Lizzie Borden Bobbleheads make great Christmas gifts

Al Mac's of Fall River, justly famous since 1910

That's good eatin', and don't you forget it.

Fall River, Massachusetts, a hardscrabble New England town, is the home of the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast, an inn converted from the house where Lizzie's father and step-mother met their hideous demises by axe-murder in 1892. The home was built in 1845 and was owned by Lizzie's father, a miserable crank who forced his family to eat rotten food and use an outhouse well past the advent of indoor plumbing and very well could have driven Lizzie to commit hari-cari with a sharp-bladed wood-handled instrument. Lizzie was acquitted and lived out the rest of her days wealthy but shunned by the Fall River society she so desperately wanted to belong to. Our tour guide Dee led us around the rooms, beautifully restored to the period of the crime (with no blood stains, however). Tasteful Christmas decorations sprinkled amongst the ghastly crime scene photos and wonderfully tasteless souvenirs in the gift shop add a festive touch. If reliving a notorious double-murder leaves you hungry, I highly recommend taking a short 4-minute drive to Al Mac's Diner, a classic original steel structure from 1954 whose sign boasts "justly famous since 1910." It is our civic duty to patronize local neighborhood diners... you'll be glad you did. Here's the Lizzie Borden B&B website: http://www.lizzie-borden.com/Default.aspx

Lizzie Borden's house slideshow