This week on my Friday ‘Picture Postals’, back to Brooklyn and to another type of food “filling station” frequented by Lovecraft. Thanks to the wonders of the Interwebz we can actually go inside the very Automat that was fitted into the space of the former Bristol’s at 3-5 Willoughby Street.

You’ll recall that Lovecraft’s favourite restaurant of “John’s” was next door to this, at No. 7. This Automat wasn’t constructed until after Lovecraft left New York City. The available evidence suggests this Automat arrived in 1933 and lasted until about 1954. This is what it looked like inside and it was fairly typical of the type…

Its big plate-glass windows usefully show us what was on the other side of Willoughby and thus was opposite “John’s”, albeit about a decade later than the 1925-1930 period in which John’s existed at No. 7. The cigar store seen on the Transit Authority glass-plates of 1916 is still there, but by this date has rather incongruously added “Luncheons”. Perhaps there was a demand for places to eat lunch where one could also smoke a cigar? Across the road in the far distance we see the other entrance to the platform on the Elevated railway line…

Lovecraft may not have used this automat, but he patronised plenty of the earlier mid-1920s automats while living in and visiting New York City. Also in the various large cities visited on his travels. This particular automat was part of a chain which had over 150 branches in New York and Philadelphia by the mid 1920s. Here is the card for their Broadway branch, which has the chain information on the back…

Evidently before the vogue for Art Deco they were rather more Gothic in feel. Thus, it would be wrong to imagine an Art Deco background for a meeting of Lovecraft and Loveman at an automat in 1925. A combination of glitzy fairground Wurlitzer and a wall of dispensers resembling a Gothic church organ seems to be ‘the look’.

‘Wurlitzer’ 1910s and 20s

‘Deco’ 1930s

Frank Gruber’s pulp-writer’s memoir The Pulp Jungle explains how they worked…

The Automat restaurants, which are peculiar to the East [of the USA], are just what the name implies. You get a flock of nickels from the cashier, then go down the battery of little cubicles, inside of which repose the articles of food that appeal to you. Pie, sandwiches, whatnot. In 1934 a sandwich was ten cents. You put two nickels into a slot, turned a knob and you were then able to open the little door and take out the sandwich. There were a few things the inventors of the Automat were not able to lick, such as coffee. You put a nickel into a slot, held a cup under a nozzle and got a cupful of black coffee. Sugar and cream, however, had to be on the table.

Lovecraft’s 1925 Diary is peppered with instances of automat meals, especially when meeting Samuel Loveman. I was also pleased to find one of these Diary instances reveals he did visit the Botanic Garden in Brooklyn, a place which was the subject of a Tentaclii ‘Picture Postals’ post a few weeks ago…

April 16. Out early — Mc[Crory?] — meet JR, [at] Zoolog. Park — Botanic Garden — down to Boat — explore &c. — Automat.

For Lovecraft, unlike many others, an automat was also an opportunity for a cash-saving takeout. For ten cents extra at one of these places he could also pocket..

my breakfast supply of cheese and peanut butter sandwiches

Such just-in-time delivery was often useful in terms of preventing “rodent marauders” from visiting his room. In many cheap places Lovecraft stayed, there might really be rats in the walls. Many New York City automats were 24-hour places, so could be visited after a long night-walk through the city. Probably they were also 24-hour in Philadelphia and elsewhere.

Another automat favourite was the Hot Chocolate “potion”, as he called it. He found that it and cocoa were unavailable at regular restaurants.

In the above picture of the Willoughby Street interior you can also see the upper balcony on the left. Such places became a haunt of the earliest science-fiction fans, possibly attracted by the Art Deco futurist vibes. Charles Hornig recalls, of the time he was writing to Lovecraft, that…

We had a series of impromptu meetings, mostly on the balconies of automat restaurants, where we would spend hours discussing our favorite topic [science fiction], until we were thrown out by the management.