A modern room with vintage photo booths and vending machines against the wall, featuring a curved red couch and glass tables on a light wood floor.

A permanent collection of analog photo booths has opened to the public in New York City — and it’s attracting lines around the block.

AUTOPHOTO features six fully restored vintage photo booths; there are thought to be fewer than 300 working analog photo booths in the entire world.

People with umbrellas stand outside a storefront with a bright red frame and glass windows. The shop displays signs reading “AUTOPHOTO” and “ANALOG PHOTOBOTH.” A red rope barrier stretches across the entrance.

A woman in a white blouse and denim shorts bends down to insert coins into a vintage photo booth with wood paneling, preparing to take photos.

Entry is free and the only charge is to use the photo booths themselves. The photos come out wet because of the mini darkroom operating inside the old machines. But first customers must wait as the entire process takes roughly three minutes.

There is the 1959 Model 12, which boasts a larger-frame format; the Model 17, a common photo booth in the 1960s; and a Polaroid booth from 1993 that uses the brand’s instant film.

“It’s not always perfect when it comes out. You have to embrace the light leaks and things like that,” Bre Conley Saxon, AUTOPHOTO’s founder, tells Time Out. “Instagram, when they first started, had all these filters that recreated literally what happens in analog.”

A photo strip with three black-and-white images of a man wearing sunglasses is displayed on a wall next to a room with vintage photo booths, a red curved couch, and a round table.

Three strips of photo booth pictures featuring women making playful faces and poses, some with a small dog. The strips are laid out on a green surface. The background of the photos is red.

A smiling woman sits in a photo booth while a man in glasses gently kisses her cheek. They appear happy and affectionate, with red and blue curtains behind them.

Museum exhibit with a bright red wall displays "100 Years of Photobooths" and a timeline with dates and images. Glass cases showcase photostrips, historical artifacts, and vintage photo equipment.

Alongside the booths there are exhibitions that look at the photo booth’s inventor, Anatol Josepho. Artifacts include his original 1920s camera, newspaper articles, and portraits of Josepho and his family.

There’s also rare discontinued color paper, one of only two color-chemistry photo booths in the United States, the only wide-format booth on the East Coast, the only working original Polaroid photo booth in the world, and galleries of original celebrity photo strips.

Three strips of photo booth pictures featuring women making playful faces and poses, some with a small dog. The strips are laid out on a green surface. The background of the photos is red.

A woman with short dark hair, wearing a red top and light blue skirt, stands indoors, looking intently at artwork on a wall, with people and bright lights in the background.

Bre Saxon says that she has been captivated by the magic of analog photography ever since she watched her first photograph appear in a darkroom in high school. After purchasing a 1968 Auto-Photo Model 14 from a thrift store while in college, it sat in her garage for years as she researched how to bring it back to life.

“Back then it was nearly impossible to find information on analog photo booths since digital had completely taken over,” says Conley Saxon. “Restoring a booth is a lot like fixing up a vintage car because there’s always something new to uncover.”

Her passion grew into AUTOPHOTO and now operates 24 booths across the country. The museum and gallery in New York is part of a wave of interest in vintage analog photo booths that very nearly disappeared entirely.

AUTOPHOTO is located at 121 Orchard Street, New York, and is open weekly from Tuesday to Sunday, noon to 10 PM. For more, head to the website and Instagram.

Image credits: Courtesy of AUTOPHOTO