Canteen Canteen Canteen

[He Ran All the Way (dir. John Berry, 1951). Click for a larger view.]

On their way to the scene of their crime, Norman Lloyd and John Garfield walk right past Canteen Canteen Canteen. Gentlemen, you would have been better off stopping for a snack and exiting the garage. But then, no movie.


[Click for a still larger view.]

The snacks on hand: “Delicious Fresh Nuts,” 1¢; candy, 5¢; gum, price unknown. A Hershey bar stands in the center candy slot; Wrigley’s Spearmint is on the right in the gum offerings.

The same vending-machine triptych can be seen in They Live by Night (1948). I doubt it’s this very set of machines: there, the shiny letters above the mirror are gone, and the stickers on the middle machine differ. And besides, the machines in He Ran All the Way appear to be working in a genuine garage.

Merriam-Webster has a puzzling etymology for canteen :

French cantine bottle case, sutler’s shop, from Italian cantina wine cellar, probably from canto corner, from Latin canthus iron tire.

The Online Etymology Dictionary traces more or less the same history but adds a helpful gloss on the word:

Thus is perhaps another descendant of the many meanings that were attached to Latin canto “corner;” in this case, perhaps “corner for storage.”

If a canteen is, as M-W says, “a small cafeteria or snack bar,” this canteen is a pretty poor one. But wait: Canteen, capitalized, is also the name of a vending-machine company, still vending today. You can see the name on a sticker on the center machine. Here’s a timeline that accounts for the company name and answers a burning question: why do vending machines have mirrors?

As an example of the art of the vending machine, Canteen Canteen Canteen is undeniably impressive.

Related posts
The gum machines of Henry (Many with a mirror)
Mid-century cigarette machine

Another Henry gum machine

[Henry , March 1, 2016.]

This fellow (Henry’s father?) wondered how he’d look with a mustache. Henry used the man’s bowtie and a gum machine to answer the question.

Related reading
All OCA Henry posts (Pinboard)

And more gum machines
Henry : Henry : Henry : Perry Mason : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry

[Now they’ll be off in search of a tie cleaner.]

Henry and a gum machine

[Henry, July 18, 2012.]

Henrietta has just wondered what Henry would look like with a mustache. The mysterious streetside object last seen on July 19, 2011 is here revealed as a gum machine, complete with mirror.

I have never seen these gum machines outside the subway stations of my childhood. But then I have never lived in the comics.

Other Henry posts
Betty Boop with Henry
Henry, an anachronism
Henry buys liverwurst
Henry, getting things done
Henry’s repeated gesture

Henry mystery

[Henry, July 19, 2011.]

What Henry is doing is no mystery: he’s painting on a black eye to match the one a bully just gave him. (Ta-da: sunglasses.) But what is he using as a mirror?

My guess is that it’s a gum machine, the kind that once could be found attached to posts in New York City subway stations. Here are three (machines, not stations). I suppose that in the right light the glass could serve as a mirror (especially if it were, say, 1947 or so).

Sometimes I wonder who in their right mind reads Henry.

Related posts
Betty Boop with Henry
Henry’s repeated gesture

[Here’s a photograph of a gum machine in its native habitat. There’s a better suggestion from Pete in the comments: a comb dispenser.]

Young man with an umbrella

[Henry, April 11, 2013.]

Another gum machine, another dowdy streetscape.

And speaking of the dowdy: I remember when umbrellas only came in Large. Carrying an umbrella on a day that turned out to hold no rain became, at least for my younger self, an exercise in acute self-consciousness.

Other Henry posts
Betty Boop with Henry : Henry, an anachronism : Henry and a gum machine : Henry at the shoe repairman : Henry buys liverwurst : Henry, getting things done : Henry mystery : Henry’s repeated gesture

Gum machines, comics, Kubrick, chins

[Henry, September 10, 2013.]

Streetside gum machines live on in the panels of Henry. Every day, this strip offers pictures of the gone world.

And here is a gum machine in a New York City subway station, photographed by Stanley Kubrick for Look. Thanks, Ezra, for passing it on.

Also:

To: Henry

From: Michael

Re: Chin

When you grow up, grow a beard.

More gum machines
Henry : Henry : Henry : Perry Mason : Henry

Henry , gum, hair, Lacan

[Henry, August 17, 2016. Click for a larger view.]

Yet another gum machine. But this time with long hair. Today’s strip, like April’s “New Math” strip, is strong evidence that our Henry re-runs, however anachronistic they may otherwise appear (BOY WANTED signs, icemen, etc.), date from the 1960s.

I like Henry’s response to the experience of the mirror stage. So you’re bald? Just whistle.

Related reading
All OCA Henry posts (Pinboard)

And more gum machines
Henry : Henry : Henry : Perry Mason : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry

Yet another Henry gum machine

[Henry, February 3, 2017.]

Related reading
All OCA Henry posts (Pinboard)

And still more gum machines
Henry : Henry : Henry : Perry Mason : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry

[Who fills these things? Or does the gum just stay in there forever?]

Another Henry gum machine

[Henry, July 7, 2015.]

One can never have too many streetside gum machines. I like the weathered-metal effect.

More gum machines
Henry : Henry : Henry : Perry Mason : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry

Another Henry gum machine

[Henry, December 28, 2014.]

It may appear that Henry is questioning. In truth he is preparing a disguise with which to launch a snowball attack. Either way, one can never have too many streetside gum machines.

More gum machines
Henry : Henry : Henry : Perry Mason : Henry : Henry : Henry

Another Henry gum machine

[Henry, December 29, 2015.]

At the risk of stating the obvious: one can never have too many streetside gum machines.

Related reading
All OCA Henry posts (Pinboard)

And more gum machines
Henry : Henry : Henry : Perry Mason : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry

Another Henry gum machine

[Henry, December 30, 2013.]

One can never have too many streetside gum machines.

More gum machines
Henry : Henry : Henry : Perry Mason : Henry : Henry

Yet another Henry gum machine

[Henry, March 2, 2017.]

Where would we be without streetside mirrors? Oh — in modern times.

Related reading
All OCA Henry posts (Pinboard)

And still more gum machines
Henry : Henry : Henry : Perry Mason : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry : Henry

Henry at the shoe repairman

[Henry, August 22, 2012.]

In May 2012 post on shoe repairmen as the new typewriter repairmen, I wrote: “I can remember as a boy sitting in a stall-like structure with a swinging door, waiting while new heels were put on my shoes. Was that common?”

In Henry, it still is.

*

March 29, 2013: It seems they were called “shoe booths.”

*

April 7, 2015: April 7, 2015: A recent post at Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York visits a Grand Central Station shoe-repair shop with shoe booths. An earlier VNY post about Jim’s Shoe Repair (E. 59th Street) has more booths. Jeremiah Moss calls them ”modesty booths.”

Other Henry posts
Betty Boop with Henry
Henry, an anachronism
Henry and a gum machine
Henry buys liverwurst
Henry, getting things done
Henry mystery
Henry’s repeated gesture

Another streetside machine

[Henry, September 4, 2012.]

I think that GUM is more plausible than CANDY, but it’s not my comic strip. I’ve seen two other such machines since falling into the Henry vortex.

Are 2012 installments of Henry many decades old? Are they modeled on old strips? Do the makers remember these machines? And back-date magazine stores? And Shoe Repair While U Wait?