The fan is fitted into a hole in the wall, if you look closely you can see a dark line that is the edge of an adjoining building's roof. The hole above is a vent.

[The fan is not in the wall. Other shots from this series show it hanging from the ceiling. If the fan was in the wall, that would be the vent -- you wouldn't need a hole above it. The line is a reflection of the window across the room. See the comment below. - Dave]

Since the fan has a silvered backing (reflecting a window across the room) I'd guess it has an infrared heating element. Or maybe it's a reflector for a lamp. Obviously it was in that hole in the ceiling. Looks like they remounted it to aim across the room.

This pic looks like it has been altered...the back of the fan is dead white like it was masked out. The fan itself looks like a cut & paste from another image. The reflection on the ceiling is not a good match for the fan. Look at the specular reflection on the rim of the fan...it is at 1 & 2 o'clock, and the glints on the Coke bottles are at 11 o'clock. What looks to be a car outside the window at the left looks way too modern.

[Um, no. - Dave]

My grandmother used to dip Honest Snuff. It came in a really nice glass which was all she used for the kitchen. Anybody else remember Honest Snuff glasses?

We had some of those drinking glasses when I was a kid in the 70s, and called them our "Waltons" glasses, because we saw them on the TV show of that name. I have never been able to figure out the manufacturer, but their prevalence suggests they may have been made by more than one, and for many decades.

This place was tiny! Three stools and this booth - Russell Lee must have squeezed in there to snap the previous photos posted here on Shorpy since you can make out the rounded corner of the booth in those photos as well.

So much to comment on in this picture ... the fan, the art, the wires (strung in a building that predated integrated electrical wiring maybe?) ...