The Fotomat

[spatch]

Kodak Fotomat, 1960's, originally uploaded by Roadsidepictures.
Can you believe this was the only picture of a "real live" Fotomat booth I could find online?

" I can see it all now, this is gonna be just like last summer. You fell in love with that girl at the Fotomat,
you bought forty dollars worth of fuckin' film, and you never even talked to her. You don't even own a camera."
- Mike Damone, Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

I believe it is only a matter of time before every piece of American culture that ends in "-mat" will disappear from the public consciousness: The Automat is gone, and so is the Fotomat. Laundromats still have a long way to go, however, unless they invent some kind of magic Febreze that actually cleans your clothes rather than play Bachelor Pretend.

The Fotomat, first opened in 1965, combined two American loves: amateur photography and the drive-thru. What could be easier? Simply pull up to that distinctive Fotomat booth and drop your film off. The film would then travel to a central processing facility and the prints sent back to the Fotomat for you to pick up at your leisure. How long would a process like this take, you may ask? Well, check the ad banner in the photo above: They're offering One Day Photo Finishing. Drop it off today, get it back tomorrow. Now that's American progress at work for you!

These darned little kiosks were everywhere, but the only one I really remember was the one at the Caldor/Big Y Plaza in Northampton, roughly where the CVS used to be (I think it's now a mattress store or something.) Most of these kiosks are long-gone, but some have gone on to live new and productive lives as drive-up espresso joints or somesuch. Fotomat lives on, however, in the form of online photo software. Just no more drive-up yellow huts.

I'd always thought it must've been a terribly lonely job to be a Fotomat clerk, but apparently some folks loved the solitude. Probably brought along a bunch of good books, too. I bet in the summer them things got hot though.

Comments

I worked in a Fotomat booth

[(Anonymous)]

Back in the mid 1980's, I spent two years of my college life working at Fotomat. Believe it or not, it wasn't that lonely of a job. We had each other to talk to. Some days, I would be on the phone to other "Fotomates" for several hours. When I wasn't talking on the phone, I would be studying for school. That is, until the occasional customer would pull up with the annoying kid who would ask me where I went to the bathroom. I would sometimes, say that I am sitting on the toilet right now. However, we had deals with the neighboring businesses to use their bathrooms. Since mine was with a gas station, and we all know how clean their bathrooms are, I usually held it until I got home. Once I had a lady drive her truck with a camper shell through my location and she caught the roof on the corner of her camper and lifted the roof off the building. That was scary. Other than that, we had an occasional robbery from a desperate person who wanted maybe 50 bucks if he was lucky. Finally, it wasn't hot in the summer because contrary to popular belief, we had air conditioning and heating. It was a perfect job for a college student and will be missed.