Thousands of Fotomats once covered the U.S. Now there's only one left in SF.

"The building is unremarkable. Perched on the edge of an empty parking lot at the intersection of Haight and Shrader streets, it's painted in a peeling shade of Blue Man Group indigo. Tags cover its concrete surface like stick-and-poke tattoos; a triangular roof, slightly too large for the rest of the structure, is plopped on top, resembling a child's Lego creation."

"A double-decker bus passes by, populated by about a dozen gawking tourists, but they're either oblivious to the little kiosk on the corner, or they just don't care. In size it's comparable to the $625,000 public bathroom city officials planted in Noe Valley a couple of years ago. At one point, someone tried to spruce it up with a speckled red-and-white paint job to make it look like a mushroom."

A small blue kiosk sits at Haight and Shrader streets, painted a peeling Blue Man Group indigo and covered in tags, with a triangular roof like a child's Lego creation. Drive-thru windows are plastered over, the interior sealed, and a wad of gum clings to the roof beneath a billboard proclaiming 'The Future of AI.' The structure is the last Fotomat in San Francisco, once part of a 1967 chain founded by Preston 'Sandy' Fleet that promised 24-hour photo development to motorists. Fotomat boomed with consumer Instamatic cameras during a car-centric era of errands conducted from vehicles. The site now sits neglected and largely unnoticed.

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