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When an image of two new vending machines on the RW subway platform on 23rd Street came across the Hell Gate transom the other day, it stopped us in our tracks.
"They are encased in metal boxes to prevent theft/vandalism because we can't be trusted with anything nice ðŸ˜," a Reddit user captioned. But we saw them differently: Striking side-by-side modernist tablets. That unvarnished steel… The bottles of soda and other various treats, recessed into a series of icy rectangles as if they'd been found preserved after thousands of years… the control panels cloistered in shadow, like a hidden guillotine—operated remotely by some unfathomable Kafkaesque bureaucrat—that might chop your hand off if you tried to order some Harvest Cheddar Sun Chips…
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