A little photo booth history…
Posted 8/23/13 in: Connecticut New Jersey New York
Came across this interesting article published in the New York Times on the history of photo booths written by John Strausbaugh. A brief summary: “Anatol Josepho, a Siberian inventor, emigrated to the US in the early 1920s and assembled a team of engineers and mechanics to build the first fully automated photo booth. He unveiled the first Photomaton in 1926 at 1659 Broadway, New York, NY and the machine was an instant hit! In April, 1927, Time magazine estimated 280,000 customers entered Josepho’s booth, paying 25 cents, waiting eight minutes to process a strip of eight separate photos.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/arts/14expl.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Apparently, there are a few of the old-fashion photo booths with the traditional chemical developing process in New York City – one at the Lakeside Lounge Bar in the East Village – another at Otto’s Shrunken Head in Alphabet City – if anyone is interested in checking it out!
For further reading, check out this book by author Nakki Goranin:
