Automat Up for Landmark Status

The fate of the terra-cotta building located on the southeast corner of W. 104th Street and Broadway may soon be decided when a city commission votes whether to grant the building landmark status.

The Art Deco structure was built in 1930 and used to house a Horn and Hardart automat, a popular chain of cafeterias that used to dot the city, characterized by coin-operated machines serving people everything from coffee to macaroni and cheese. The building's current tenants include a Rite Aid on the ground floor and two other establishments on the floors above.

The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission is tentatively scheduled to vote on the landmarking Tuesday at a public hearing. Proponents of designating the building as a landmark are seeking to preserve what they can of the architectural and historic character of the neighborhood, which they feel is being threatened by new high-rise developments.

"Obviously, if they don't landmark the building, it will come down like all the other low buildings," said Alfred Placeres, president of the New York State Federation of Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, which occupies the second floor of the building.

Preservationists have tried to landmark the building since 1985, according to Hunter Armstrong, deputy director of the nonprofit Landmark West. Landmark West has had varying success advocating for landmark status for buildings on the Upper West Side that have housed automats.

The process of landmarking the building has been an unusual one. While the LPC initially held a public hearing June 27, 2006, an uncharacteristic second hearing was scheduled for Dec. 12, 2006 so that the building's owner, Norma Teitler, who currently resides in Florida, could attend a hearing. She and her husband bought the building in 1966.

"There is nothing about this building that would indicate to the general public that this was once an automat worthy of landmarking," said Leonard Kolleeny, Teitler's lawyer, in a statement submitted to the LPC at the December meeting. "I believe that we should save 'landmarking' for important distinguished structures."

Lorraine Diehl, co-author of The Automat, attended the December hearing and advocated for landmark status on the grounds that the Horn and Hardart was a place that was significant for most New Yorkers of the day.

"Beyond its architectural excellence, one of the things that should be factored is the city's history," Diehl said. "When you are destroying a building, you are not just losing architecture but a link to the past."

"Princes and paupers would go into the automat and no one judged who was what. It appealed to every level of society," Diehl said.

Along with serving as a reminder of the days before modern fast-food restaurants, the 104th automat also had its share of memorable events, including an incident in 1933 when a man poisoned two rolls he purchased at the restaurant. According to the next day's New York Times, the man ate one of the rolls while a woman snatched the other, killing both.