The Hot Dog Factory (1937)

Of course now children take it for granted but once we watched boxes on a conveyor belt, sliding by, magically filled and closed, packed and wrapped. We couldn't get enough of it, running alongside the machine. In kindergarten Miss Haynes walked our class down Stuyvesant Avenue, then up Prospect Street to the hot dog factory. Only the girls got to go as the boys were too wild. We stood in line, wiggling with excitement as the man talked about how they made hot dogs, then he handed us one, and Jan dropped hers, so I broke mine in half. This was the happiest day of our lives, children whose mothers didn't drive, and had nowhere to go but school and home, to be taken to that street to watch the glittering steel and shining rubber belts moving, moving meats, readymade. I wish I could talk with Jan, recalling the miracle and thrill of the hot dog factory, when she was alive, before it all stopped— bright lights, glistening motors, spinning wheels.