Is there anyone left alive that would have?  [:D] I’m well into middle age and they were long gone by the time I was around…

Just out of curiosity, how can you be “well into middle age” and claim that the Automats were “long gone by the time I was around … “? Either you are in denial or you can’t count. I’m guessing it’s both.

Middle age is classified between 35 and 65 (that’s reality take it or leave it). At 51 I’m just passed the halfway point I’m too young to remember the 60’s or much of anything in the first half of the 70’s, the automats declined by the middle of the 1970’s in fact most Horn and Hardarts were replaced by burger king by that time. So yes, they were probably around the first 10 years (barely after the first 5 years) and therefore I would have been too young to remember.

 

How abut the fact that Horn & Hardart’s last Automat in New York was still operating in 1991?

 

“One” doesn’t constitute “many”. In  a sea of multitudes and multitudes of diverse restaurants all around the city, it would have completely been lost in the shuffle.