The Horn & Hardart Automat

In my book Honest Sid I discuss the Horn & Hardart Automat - a "mechanized cafeteria" in New York City that was popular in the 1930s.  For all who went to them, especially a six-year old like myself, it was an experience to be remembered. As I wrote starting on page 80:

When we [my father, my mother, and myself] reached the street, my father said, "Listen, why don't we get a cup of coffee?  There's a Horn & Hardart's right up Broadway near 55th where we can sit down and talk."

I loved going to the Horn & Hardart's Automats.  What a joy to examine all the small compartments, especially in the section labeled "CAKES." When I finally made a choice, my father dropped a nickel into the slot and the little door would pop open.  I stood on my toes and reached in for my favorite, a chocolate glace cupcake.

Sometimes there would be a loud knock and all the open doors would suddenly snap shut.  Then the compartments spun around and a moment later spun back again, filled with cakes.  It seemed like a miracle to me.  For another nickel, coffee and milk came out of spigots in the shape of a gargoyle's head.  To me, the restaurant was almost like an arcade: you put a nickel in and got a prize.

My father and mother filled their coffee cups and we sat down at a table.  By then, after living in cramped hotel rooms, I was used to the fact almost all discussions, when they were not fights, took place in an Automat or some other cafeteria.  Even though we'd moved to roomier quarters, the habit persisted.

Thanks to a terrific capsule review of Honest Sid in the Downtown Express, I recently learned about a terrific book: Automats, Taxi Dancers and Vaudeville: Excavating Manhattan's Lost Places of Leisure by David Freeland. Anyone interested in learning more about the Automat could certainly start there.