I know my extreme distaste for laundromats is shared by many people, especially these skeevy days. I have one friend in Manhattan who brings a can of Lysol before he allows his clothing to even touch the inside of a cart, machine or dryer.
I line my own carts with plastic, never knowing if someone's brat in the building decided to 'ride' inside them with dirty shoes. UCK.
Growing up in the Bronx, 1950s, we all had our own washing machines, but no dryers. Outdoor clotheslines in the warm months, and indoor clotheslines for those winter days when your wet clothing froze into baccala if you hung them outside. And people also used the lines up on the roof (when we could still go up there.)
My mother was a genius at having as many lines as she could possibly fit...two from the kitchen window, and one from the bedroom extending all the way over to a sturdy post my father put on the fire escape. And then there was the back courtyard line, but she didn't like using that one, too dirty.
So I am still resentful about having to share a laundry room with people, most of whom talk too much about nothing and are more annoying than gnats on a hot sticky summer night.
As for 'beauty parlors'...my very first trip was to a neighborhood place called Chez Joey on East 187th Street, just steps away from Arthur Avenue. It was 1961, I was graduating Junior High School 45 and attending the prom, and a ridiculous hair style known as the 'artichoke' ruled the day. Because I was intensely shy and had zero self-confidence, I just allowed Joey to cut, style and spray my hair until it was harder than a soldier's helmet, in agony the entire time. I HATED it but bit the bullet, wore it to the prom, but could not WAIT to wash that crap out of my hair and do it the way I liked it.
Getting back to laundry circa 1950s, we also invented the very first version of the internet, and it was far more fun than the current one!
See what I mean??
