Horn & Hardart Automat-Cafeteria Building

History and architecture

The 3-story, limestone-clad Horn & Hardart Automat-Cafeteria Building at 2710-2714 Broadway (at West 104th Street), a distinctive small-scale commercial structure executed in the Art Deco style, is one of the best surviving examples of the popular chain restaurants that proliferated in the city during the first three decades of the 20th century. In 1927, the Horn & Hardart Co. became the leaseholder of this site. This building was constructed in 1930 to the design of F[rederick].

P[utnam]. Platt & Brother [Charles Carsten Platt], who executed numerous New York commissions for Horn & Hardart from about 1916 to 1932. By 1927, F.P. Platt & Bro. had developed a modern and functional design prototype for purpose-built Horn & Hardart automat-cafeteria buildings, with large windows, that assisted the restaurant chain in achieving a consistent commercial image. The Horn & Hardart Co., established in 1911, was the New York subsidiary of the Horn & Hardart Baking Co. of Philadelphia, which had been incorporated in 1898 by Joseph V.

Horn and Frank A. Hardart, lunchroom proprietors since 1888. In 1902, Horn & Hardart opened its first waiterless Philadelphia restaurant, or “automat,” in which customers could retrieve food directly from windows after depositing nickels in European-made equipment. The first New York automat opened in 1912, with American machinery, at 1557 Broadway in Times Square. Known for uniformly good food at low cost, automats became wildly popular and one of the city’s cherished democratic institutions, appealing to a wide clientele.

This automat-cafeteria building is made notable by its glazed polychrome Art Deco style terra-cotta ornament on the third story. Executed in hues of green, blue, tan, and gold luster by the Atlantic Terra Cotta Co., the terra cotta is located on sills, panels above the windows, stylized pilaster capitals, and the building’s terminating band. The highly sophisticated panels feature stylized floral motifs and zigzag patterns; the modeler of these panels has not been identified, but the work is strikingly similar to that of preeminent architectural sculptor Rene P.

Chambellan. Horn & Hardart remained a tenant on the ground story and mezzanine here until 1953, and the mezzanine level was remodeled as a full story in 1955. There have been a wide variety of commercial and organizational tenants over the years. While the current ground-floor storefront covers historic elements, visible above this are the upper portion of the original central segmental arched opening (with a fluted molded granite surround with a keystone) and the top of the bronze entrance portal and decorative bronze spandrel.