Making History Come Alive Newsletter-How to eat at a New York City automat, according to the directions on a 1940s postcard from Ephemeral

I was born too late to experience a Horn & Hardart Automat firsthand. But if I was around during the automat era—which peaked Midcentury and ended with the closure of the last Manhattan automat in 1991—I think I could get the hang of how to purchase food.

Still, maybe the Automat concept was a little puzzling to some people, especially out-of-towners visiting automats in Times Square, Herald Square, and other touristy hotspots.

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Newcomers and transplants might also have found the automat strange, though the low prices and tasty offerings were their best bet for affordable meals on a student or artist budget.

To help them understand the self-service aspect of these fabled Art Deco-style eateries, this 1940s postcard offers some direction.

I appreciate the back of the postcard, which lets us know that the little glass compartments that held cups of coffee, salisbury steak, slices of pie, and other "delicious" food items were known by the company as "show cases."

I've posted many automat postcardsover the years, but this one is my favorite. The instructions, the view of the clean and tidy interior, and the plug from Horn & Hardart about the quality and popularity of the food they sold make me nostalgic for something I never experienced.