The Frankfurt Snack Bar, PX, and Commissary, early 1950s, at "WAC Circle" (corner of Miquel / Adickes Allee and Eschersheimer Landstraße; see map). You can just barely make out the big Post Exchange sign and (I think) the Snack Bar sign on the left.
Everything was ridiculously cheap here. Americans had an absurdly easy life -- big, clean, bright, airy apartments, subsidized shopping, subsidized everything -- compared to Germans, who were still poor in those days yet paid higher prices for many things.
One nostalgic touch I remember from the PX -- you could listen to (vinyl) records before you decided whether to buy them. FHS students would often go to the PX after school in groups to listen to music for free. There was a counter with headsets and, if memory is not playing tricks on me, also glass booths where you could sit on comfy sofas with your friends and spend the whole afternoon playing records. Or you could take over a big table in the Snack Bar and monopolize the juke box. Or the Teen Club. Or the Field House. Or the bowling alley...
Everything Americans needed was on the base, except three things. If you wanted to go swimming, you had to go to the German pools in Oberürsel or Hanau. If you wanted pizza, you went to D'Angelo's (which spoiled me forever; I never had pizza that good again except in Italy). And if (as a schoolkid) you wanted to drink, you went to a Trinkhalle (like the one next to the school), a bar (such as Frank's near the PX, Kurt's am Dornbusch, or hundreds of others downtown), a beer hall (such as Maier Gustl's near the Hauptbahnhof), a Gasthaus (like the ones in Ginnheim), or D'Angelo's -- there was no "drinking age" in Germany, as there was on the base. Thus many American kids were not as insulated as you might expect; they got out and around, learned to ride the trolleys and trains, speak German, eat German food, shop in German stores, etc. (Ten or twenty years later, all that would become an extravagant luxury as the Mark strengthened and the dollar shrank -- in other words, the tables turned.)
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