We learn today from Andrea at hula seventy, home of “Photobooth Friday,” that the beloved photobooth at Niagara in New York City has been replaced with a digital booth, and one that at least temporarily wouldn’t take their dollars, to boot.
We’d had problems with the booth before, but it was also the center of a few photobooth projects, including a Photobooth art show earlier this year. It’s too bad this booth didn’t survive, and we mourn its removal.
It’s time once again for Gridskipper’s monthly mention of the photobooth (see September’s and October’s); this time, it’s a mini-list of the best bars in New York to document your night out with a photostrip.
Picture yourself in a booth in a bar, man, drunk on Red Stripe and tangerine Skyy. Photobooths are the best strip of nostalgia $3–4 can buy you. The delights are manifold. The cloistered privacy behind the curtain. The blinding flash. The minute long wait while the pictures print. And finally, four B&W photos stacked vertically, a portrait of your life over 3 seconds.
It’s nice of Gridskipper to credit us on the photo, but all we ever did was link to it; the original photo of Ashley and Nick is on eatmydesign.com, which we came across through Flickr.
UPDATE, 11/29/06: Not to just keep recycling Gridskipper posts that mention photobooths, but they’ve gone and done another, using a few photostrips from the booth at the Short Stop in L.A. Calling the Short Stop Hipster Biodome, the piece mentions the photobooth among the “pool tables, a dance floor… arcade games, [and] Bloc Party on the stereo.”
Less than two years ago, Photobooth.net was founded with the goal of collecting and spreading knowledge about old-style photochemical photobooths around the world. Since then, we’ve been featured on the CBC , the BBC, and in numerous newspaper and online articles around the country. An article in this week’s Gazette in Frederick, Maryland, is a first for us, though, in that it references Photobooth.net as an authority on photobooths, without the story being about the site in any way. We know our listings on Maryland are woefully inadequate, but we’re certainly pleased to be cited as an authoritative source on photobooth locations in the article about the black and white photobooth found CineGraphic Studios in Frederick. Now that the booth is in the public eye, maybe a Photobooth.net reader can take a photo and a sample strip and send it on in.
Read “1, 2, 3 Smile!” on gazette.net or archived in our In Print section.
In between road trips this summer, each of which netted one solitary photobooth sighting (here and
here), I spent a brief afternoon traversing Massachusetts’ North Shore in search of a few remaining locations I hadn’t had the chance to visit in my five years living there. Now that things have settled down in L.A., I’ve had a chance to get the locations on the site.
First, I headed to Salisbury Beach, and to Joe’s Playland. Each of the two locations across the street from one another had a working booth, both black and white. The first was fairly normal, but the second was notable for its wider paper and three shots-per-strip setup, similar to the booth at Playland Arcade in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire.
Around the corner from Joe’s, I wandered into Carefree Amusement, which was fairly deserted, but did feature a nice black and white booth. I had trouble getting it to produce a strip, but the woman in charge gave me her key to open it up, check it out, and try it again. Thanks!
I headed next to Salem, and to Salem Willows Park, home of the Salem Willows Arcade. I found two booths next to one another, one black and white and one color. It was nice to see that at the height of summer, all five booths I found were working, turning out great looking photos.
We’ve now got 18 locations for the state of Massachusetts, three of which were short-term at museums and the like; that leaves 15 photobooths around the state. I know I’ve missed a few at some metro-area malls, but I’d love to know if there any that have missed our attention in bars, restaurants, and arcades around the state.
In a review of downtown LA’s Bar 107, which is next on our to-do list for its photobooth, Gridskipper mention’s the bar’s booth, and then goes on to define the photobooth in general as “the best frat boy excuse for breaking the touch barrier since five billion decibel music.” The photobooth is all things to all people, indeed. We’ll visit soon, take in the “ironic hipster chic one might think lacking on the left coast: red walls, ginormous NSFW Bible art, stuffed deer heads, random signs, etc.,” and report back.
This just in from the Dallas Morning News: a free photobooth at the front of the Imperial Palace Casino in Las Vegas is no more. According to the News Travel Column, “This great freebie falls victim to what has been a series of changes and revamps at the center-Strip casino since it was bought by Harrah’s.” We haven’t had any reports from people who have used the booth in the past to know if it was a traditional or digital booth. If anyone has memories of using the booth, please, comment or drop us a line.
Just as the first trip across the country this summer saw a new location or two, the second trip has spawned a couple of discoveries as well. First, thanks to the Flickr ‘photobooth’ tag feed, I heard about a photobooth at Tex Tubb’s Taco Palace in Madison, Wisconsin a few months ago, and last week, had the chance to visit as we passed through town. The restaurant looks like a great place, though we didn’t have time to eat there; the photobooth is located near the passageway between the two areas of the restaurant, next to the bar and in front of the kitchen. It’s a black and white, Model 21T, and costs $3. The customized sign on the front panel of the booth reads, “Smile real perty and pin up your pic. Make your mama proud.” Customers are encouraged to place their photos on the wall of fame, underneath the 8‑track player, in the doorway.
In music video news, one night a few states ago, Aimee noticed a photobooth in the new Jessica Simpson video that was on the tv in the hotel room; the director of the video, Brett Ratner, explains why the photobooth makes an appearance.
This half of Photobooth.net is currently relocating from upstate New York to Southern California, and on the way, I’ve tried to find a few photobooth locations I haven’t seen before. Sadly, I only came across one along the road, but I also happened upon one here in Los Angeles.
At Sparky’s Roadhouse Café in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, we enjoyed a great meal, a beer from their huge selection, and a classic Model 11 photobooth. The booth turns out some great black and white photos, and each strip goes for two dollars (or a little more) in quarters.
Yesterday, wandering along Melrose in Los Angeles, I spotted a photobooth in the Marc Jacobs store, a booth that is apparently only there for a short time as part of a promotion. The booth is free, “one per customer,” and is also a nice black and white, a Model 25.
We’ve already got a number of photobooth locations in LA, but I’ll be on the lookout for more now that we’ll be living here — any advice is most welcome.
This weekend found us heading to the amusement park at Sylvan Beach on Oneida Lake, north of Syracuse, New York. Thanks to the ever-useful LiveJournal photobooth community, I had heard there were a few booths there, and indeed, we found three booths — two color (here and here), one black and white — at the carousel building in the center of the park. It’s still a little early in the season, and it was a little chilly at the park. Sadly, by the time of our visit, the machines hadn’t yeat been loaded with their chemicals and prepared for the summer rush. I peeked inside the booths, had a nice chat with Sue and Larry, and took some pictures of the booths, but I was a little sad not to have been able to take any photos. The park looks like a real gem of a place, and I’d love to return in better weather.
For more on the park, read this recent article from Syracuse.com, titled “Sylvan Beach stands on the brink.”