Nostalgia: The Way It Was: Horn and Hardart

One of the favorite hangouts for New Yorkers in the40’s and 50’s had to be the Automat.

The most democratic of institutions, the Automat played willing hosts to the young and the old, the rich and the poor.

The common denominator was the food. Til this day, I have never had macaroni caserolle, baked beans, fish cakes, orange and chocolate glace cakes or tapioca that can compare.

The automats were far from fancy. In fact, they were mostly utilitarian; yet they did have an aesthetic. Mainly, a kind of art deco theme ran through them. But mainly they were just serious eating places and for many, a great hang-out. No wonder, on a cold or rainy day, they were usually packed.

Oftentimes my folks who seemed to work all the time, would give me a dollar and I would intentionally “get lost” which usually meant taking the subway into the city and spending the day gawking at all the sights until my feet wore out. It seems as if everything was free in those days though I know that wasn’t quite literally true. Yet, New York was the perfect city for walking and it became as it did for me the favorite pastime of many. . Window shopping my mother used to call it. When it got to cold to walk or my feet would start to ache, I always knew that there would be a Horn & Hardart Automat close by where I could warm up, rest my feet and get something good and nourishing to tide me over til I made it home. I especially loved these trips when they occured during the fall of the year. Only because there was a briskness in the air and you had to bundle up and everyone was always in a hurry, rushing this way and that. And to a youngster that was all fascinating.

When I felt the need, I would take my dollar or the change in my pocket over to the cashier and invariably with one wave of her hand, she would put down in the tray the precise equivalent of what I had handed over in nickels. It was uncanny. No Horn & Hardart cashier ever seemed to make a mistake.

Armed with a hand full of nickels, I would peruse all the little windows to see what was good today. usually, it was all good and one of the hardest decisions to make.
Do I get the baked bean casserole or the macaroni? . Do I order a sandwich or fishcakes?
The decision was never easy. If I couldn’t make up my mind, I would wander over to the hot table and see what was cooking. Usually, for forty five cents I could get my favorite which was carrots, mashed potatoes and creamed spinach. Then I would order a role at the end of the line for an extra nickel and top it off with a cup of coffee dispensed from a
ornate spout that required the insertion of a nickel and the flip of a handle.
This was the marriage of technology and human intervention at its highest level or so i thought at the time.

Overall, I would spend fifty five cents and have eaten like a king or at least what I considered to be like a king. There would even be enough money left after this indulgence to go out and buy a coke and a candy bar before returning home. Surely, life was good in those days.

But if you didn’t have a dollar? Well, that was a whole different matter. I would sit at the tables and study the faces of the people eating. During the lunch and dinner hours, the people who would come into the automat were all business people. They would come in in ones and twos during lunch or after work. If they were alone, they would generally eat and study their paper at the same time. The couples would chat incessantly about this that and everything under the sun. It was during the non-rush hours, that the observer would see a different part of the city. There were the homeless and the indigent who would come into the automat for a chance to warm up or have a cup of tea. If they didn’t have any money, they would go to the cafeteria for a cup of hot water. Then they would fill it with tomato ketchup and pepper and sit at the table and enjoy their cup of tomato soup.
Others would scrounge left-overs before the cleaning gals picked up the trays. It was to their credit, that the staffs of the Horn & Hardart treated these people of the night with a certain modicum of courtesy and respect for them as human beings who had simply fallen on hard times. It seems to me, in retrospect, that this was a kinder, gentler time--a time when people seemed to matter more than they do today. It was not a time when people became invisible or some obstacle to your goals, only to be shoved out of the way without any attempt at consideration. Now, there may be some who disagree with me but that was my recollection; of course, tempered by the fact that I was young and probably naive about too many things.

These unfortunate folks would sometimes just sit there and stare into their cups or out into space. And you could not help but wonder what they thought about. Was it an old love? A friend that was no longer there to share things with? A life style that they used to know?

You could only speculate on these things.. But it was not hard to imagine that these people didn’t start out this way. Most of them were sure to have held down responsible jobs, lived in good homes, and enjoyed at least a normal life style. And then something happened in their lives to change their fortunes. . Maybe, they were not strong enough to deal with whatever happened. maybe, it was just a question of too many reverses. For whatever reason, they had been brought down and had been unable to get back to where they were. Now, they had become inhabitants of the street, the nameless few, each with a story to tell.....And perhaps not so very different from you and I. But I was young and naive and at that time knew very little of the world. So, I smiled to show some empathy and said a few words to offer them encouragement and then moved on to happier thoughts. For I was young and full of life and there was just so much to see and do.

Today, I think back to those days when I didn’t have more than a couple of pennies to rub together and think back about how simple times were then, or at least they seemed so from my very limited perspective. And I still wonder about all those people--those with hopes and aspirations and the others who seemed at the end of their ropes. Did it all work out? Did the sad and dejected find what they were looking for? Were they able to turn around their lives? I hope so...and, at times, I mention all of these nameless people in my prayers. I also wonder if all those I saw who were so full of hope and ambition went on to realize their dreams? I miss the experience of sitting on a metal chair with a plastic seat and looking out at the sea of people talking, eating, reading, and doing what seas of people do in a big city. And I miss turning the handle and watching the cup fill with steam hot coffee that flows out of sculptured stainless steel spout and cuts off exactly when the cup is filled. And I feel poorer for being deprived of the experience of sharing my table with the rich and the poor alike. It is an activity that once experienced cannot be forgotten or denied. I cannot say that that is where I learned more about human nature than anywhere else but one thing is true: It helped shape me for what was later to come and I think in many ways it helped make me a more mature person and more tolerant of life’s surprises. In some respects, too, in some incalculably little understood way, it helped me to cope with the disappointments and hardships that were to come. No matter how bad things got, I always thought back to those poor “unfortunates” who had no place to go, no families to care, no one in the world who cared weather they lived or died. Because as bad as life can become, somehow I always knew that there were people who needed me and loved me and I would remember back and give thanks to God for my good fortune.