There Is No Cat - A Visit to the Autophoto Museum + Gallery in New York City

Friday, October 24, 2025

A Visit to the Autophoto Museum + Gallery in New York City

Last Friday Laura and I went into the city. One reason was to visit a new museum, the Autophoto Photobooth Gallery + Museum on the lower east side. They have several working old school photobooths which you can use. We're always on the lookout for these old booths. New Jersey used to have a few, but they're all gone here.

Four photographs in a vertical strip of a man and a woman posing.

The first booth we used was a Model 14 that sits in the front window. It's in great shape. Very late 1950s, early 1960s look to it, a style we used to see a lot of on the Jersey Shore.

A woman leans over in front of a photobooth to retrieve a strip of photographs. A sign on top of the booth reads 'Photos. Electronic Lighting. All Photos Are Sharp and Clear.' A red curtain is closed.

There was a booth to do color photos next to it, but the color paper is in short supply and they weren't operating it the day we were there.

Next up was a Model 21, very stylish, more of a 1970s vibe, bright colors and the like.

A woman steps into a photo booth. There is a purple bar at the top with the word 'PHOTOS' in yellow. The body of the booth is red and white stripes, with a yellow border around the place where the pictures come out. A sign in front of the booth says this is a Model 21 and gives an explanation of its history.

A photo strip sits inside the strip dispenser, a man and woman visible on the strip inside. The border around the dispenser is a bright yellow.

Up next was a rare Polaroid photobooth. For some reason, these never quite caught on, so there weren't many made. I think I've only seen a couple in the wild over the years, and not for many years.

A woman and a man smile at the camera in front of a background with many abstract Polaroid frames. The photo has a green color cast.

I think this booth could probably use some adjustment. The photo looks underexposed to me and has a distinct green cast.

There is a Model 9 next to the Polaroid booth, but it is non-functional. The Model 9 was the first model produced by Autophoto, and is fairly primitive by comparison with later models like the Model 11, which introduced the ability to process more than one strip at a time.

A worn wooden photobooth with rounded corners stands against a wall. There is a seat inside and photo strips attached under plexiglass on the outside. On the top are a couple of signs. The sign on the left reads 'Property of Auto Photo Co. of Canada Ltd 2195 Ekers Ave Montreal.' The sign on the right is smaller and just reads 'Property of Auto Photo co.'

There is a display in the back that shows the inner workings of a photobooth using a partial Model 20 with the front wall replaced with plexiglass.

A partial photobooth with a clear plexiglass cover that exposes the inner workings of the booth. Stenciled on the plexiglass is 'Demonstration Booth For Viewing Purposes Only Pictures Deliverd From Booth You Sat In'.

Auto-Photo Model 20. 1960s-1970s. Demo. Non-Operational.
This unusual half-booth was never intended for taking portraits on its own. Instead, it was built as a demonstration unit for the Pacific Science Center museum, designed to reveal the inner workings of a photobooth in real time.
When paired with a functioning booth, a customer would sit in the 'real' booth to take their strips. That booth's mechanism was linked to the half-unit, triggering it to run in perfect synchronization. As the customer's strip developed next door, onlookers could watch the chemical dip-and-dunk process play out inside the transparent machine.
The demonstration booth exposed the hidden mechanics behind every photobooth: paper feeding into the carriers, the spider assembly rotating strips through the sequence of chemical tanks, and the delivery unit presenting the finished strip.
Serving both as a training tool and a promotional display, this
see-through booth offered a rare chance to peek behind the
curtain of one of the 20th century's most popular automated machines.
From our primary collection of restored Auto-Photo models.

There are also other displays about the history of photobooths. I didn't get pictures of all of them. I gather the displays will rotate. One of the displays was an art book of photographs of photobooth technicians.

A display on the wall showing aspects of the history of photobooths. Below that is a folded long strip of paper under plexiglass showing photos of photobooth technicians.

Next up was a Model 17 that was only sporadically working. We paid our money and the strip didn't come out. In this picture you can see one of the docents working on the innards while on the phone with "Bre", the owner of the museum and most of the machines. When Laura had told me about the museum, I figured there was only one person with the assets to pull it off, and when the docent told me she was on the phone with Bre who was helping her troubleshoot, I knew that I was right, this was the brainchild of Breanna Conley Saxon, who was interviewed about photobooths on the much missed All Through A Lens podcast a few years ago.

Four photographs in a vertical strip of a man and a woman posing. The left edge of the strip is partially damaged and all black.

She was able to retrieve our photos from the booth, somewhat damaged. We got a free sitting in the one booth we hadn't used that day, a Model 11 that had been converted to digital. The 11D outputs two strips of three photos each, a total of six photos, oriented horizontally rather than vertically. The photo quality is surprisingly similar to analog photo booths.

Three photographs in a horizontal strip of a man and a woman posing.

As a museum, it's good that they have an example of a digital conversion, but it pains me to see these, as it is how so many of these booths have wound up. The booth on the boardwalk in Asbury Park that used to be in Palace Amusements and in the basement of a mall on Cookman Ave. now sits in the Silverball Pinball Museum on the boardwalk converted to digital. Boo!

A wooden photobooth with rounded corners and a grayish-blue curtain. A sign beside it says it is a Model 11D, a model that didn't exist under the original Auto-Photo company.

The last photobooth we tried was a rare Model 12, which produces larger photos, but only in a strip of three. The photos it produced look a little overexposed and washed out to me, which honestly is kind of in keeping with how they used to look back in the day. You could get some that were underexposed or underdeveloped, overexposed, or perfectly exposed and developed, depending on maintenance and the state of the chemicals. And that's one of the things that makes getting these so much fun.

The museum is tiny, just a storefront on a side street, and it was packed on the day we were there, about a week after it opened. The have a souvenir shop in the middle of the space.

A woman works behind a counter in front of an iPad. The wall behind her says 'Autophoto New York' and several items for sale hang from the wall, including bags, photostrip picture frames, a map of photobooths in New York city, and some books.

I have to be honest, this was not a cheap date. Most of the photo booths cost $8 for a strip; the color booth and the Model 12 cost $12. That's actually in line with costs at other booths in NYC, maybe at the high end, but the booths are well maintained and in great shape. The souvenirs are also pretty expensive. That didn't stop us from getting anything, but it's worth keeping in mind if you're on a budget. Entry to the museum is free; they make their money on the use of the booths and the souvenir sales.

We had a wonderful time and really enjoyed out visit.

Posted at 3:20 PM

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