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Category Archives: Chicago

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Relics: Laundromat

words and images Posted on March 2, 2023 by dlschirfMarch 8, 2023
IMG_9148
Wonder Wash, Anna, Illinois, evening of May 24, 2013

According to the Hyde Park Herald, Hyde Parkers who don’t have laundry facilities in their house or building now have to go outside the neighborhood for clean clothes.

Harper & 53rd Launder Koin, the last laundromat in Hyde Park, is closing for good on Tuesday.

The property, located at  5230 S. Harper Ave., is being purchased by the University of Chicago. According to co-owner Josh Hwang, Launder Koin’s last day in operation is technically Feb. 28, but “residents should try and get their laundry done before Feb. 26.” 

The laundromat has been operating off 53rd Street since 2002, predating large nearby developments like Harper Court. Back then, Hwang was only 13 years old and working at the business for his parents. 


Though demand for laundromats has dwindled nationwide in the last decade, Hwang said Launder Koin still services between 500 to 1,200 people a month. 

I’ve wondered if I should do a “Relics” post on the institution of the laundromat, but it never seemed to be the right time. After seeing this article in the Hyde Park Herald, I figure the right time is now. The laundromat is on its way to becoming a relic, and may be for many years.

I grew up in a trailer — no dishwasher, no washer, no dryer. My understanding is in the trailer park’s early days the women did the laundry in the building “down front” (the entrance from Rte. 20). There may have been an informal “laundry day” (Tuesday? Wednesday?). The building was shut up by the time I was old enough to peer through its grimy windows and appeared to be junk storage.

Later, my dad, the only licensed driver, took the laundry to a laundromat on South Lake Park Avenue (6000? 6150?) in Hamburg on Saturdays, mostly by himself. I think it was on one occasion when I went with him that a woman asked him, with his shock of almost snow-white hair, about his cute granddaughter. “That’s my daughter,” he corrected her. I’m sure the women at the laundromat looked at him with newfound respect after that.

Winter trips took longer because he had to dry everything at the laundromat. I tried to dry jeans once or twice in winter air, but discovered they could break (tear) when frozen.

In finer weather, the wet clothes and sheets came home so we could hang them on the clotheslines. After a few hours in the breeze, they really did smell great. They also could pick up bird droppings, stains from falling wild cherries, or, worst of all, in late spring, tent caterpillars. Around May a plague of them would infest the cherry trees over the trailer and clotheslines. You hoped to pick them off so you wouldn’t find any, or parts of any, on your clothes or bedclothes later.

I imagine the laundromat could be a social place, with regulars on Saturday morning who exchanged greetings and maybe chat — with no phones or devices to distract them. Of course, you could always step out and go to a nearby store. It wasn’t likely at that time your clothes would go missing.

After I came to the university, I didn’t need to use a laundromat. The dormitory had washers and dryers, and my apartments since have had on-site laundry machines. The first was tough — I lived on the fourth floor, and the machines were on the first. There weren’t enough, so I could go down and up the stairs several times before one was free. It used a quaint honor system. You were supposed to plug the machine you used into an electrical outlet associated with your meter. It was fascinating to me to watch the meter move with the increased load. It wasn’t so fascinating when you found someone else’s laundry running up your meter.

At the next apartment, a studio, the small laundry room was slightly below ground level in the next building, and served at least a couple of buildings. In rain, snow, or cold, I’d have to dress for the weather, carry the laundry through the courtyard and a bit down the street, pass through a gate, go down steps mostly too dark to see in the alley, and hope for the best. Then repeat back and forth until all the laundry was washed and dried. I don’t miss that, especially when the weather was grim. It’s hard to get motivated to go out a half dozen or more times in wind, sleet, rain, snow, etc., especially on a day off. If I could drive and a laundromat had been an option, I’d have used it.

I’ve used laundromats twice in the last ten years that I can remember. The first was in Anna, Illinois, during a visit to Cache River and Shawnee National Forest. The other was in the college town of Geneseo, New York, while in the area to see Letchworth State Park.

The one in Anna was almost empty at maybe 8 p.m.; I recall the one in Geneseo was more crowded mid-day. Both seemed well kept, and the one in Anna gleamed with stainless steel machines.

Sadly, I have never been to the laundromat on 53rd — I’m not sure I knew it was still open. The next closest one is in Kenwood, prominently situated in a a plaza off the 47th Street exit of Jean-Baptiste Pointe DuSable Lake Shore Drive. I haven’t been in there, either, although I would need to wash heavier items there. It gets mixed reviews.

In my dad’s day, the big deal would be to have enough change — lots of change. No credit or debit cards, no Apple Pay, not even paper bills. If the price went up a quarter, naturally my dad grumbled. Inflation! To him and some of his peers, it didn’t seem an insignificant amount of money. “It adds up,” he might say.

Laundromats may not entirely disappear, just get farther and farther apart — like Hyde Park residents having to go six blocks further north into Kenwood. Five hundred to twelve hundred people a month aren’t insignificant numbers for a neighborhood. Some laundromats, like the one in Hyde Park, are family businesses. How long will future generations want to carry on the laundromat business in a rapidly evolving society that values money and technology?

Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Benjamin: Yes, sir.

Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?

Benjamin: Yes, I am.

Mr. McGuire: Plastics.

Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?

Mr. McGuire: There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?

The Graduate

Substitute “laundromats” and you’ll see what I mean.

I eagerly await the Star Trek “garment reprocessor”/”cleaning processor.”

Worf: Before being allowed to play, he was to put his soiled clothing in the garment reprocessor.


Keiko: One night goes by . . . two . . . a week . . . ten days . . . by now there’s a pile of socks half a meter high!

O’Brien: Come on . . . it wasn’t half a meter.

Keiko: After two weeks I couldn’t stand it any more. I bundled them up and put them in the cleaning processor. And I’m still doing it.

Eaton's trailer park, Hamburg, New York
The Eaton’s building may have been the trailer park’s laundromat.
Posted in Chicago, Relics | Tagged family, Hyde Park, Illinois, New York, photo, relics | 2 Replies

“I’d rather be slowly consumed by moss”

The question is, “than _____”?

(From the other bumper stickers, this is an outdoorsy person/family.)

IMG_6186
February 19, 2023 by dlschirf Posted in Blog, Chicago Tagged bumper sticker, Chicago, Hyde Park Reply

Hyde Park, Chicago — drone footage

Even better, from a drone. There are likely a lot of these out there.

November 26, 2022 by dlschirf Posted in Blog, Chicago Tagged Chicago, Hyde Park, video Reply

Hyde Park, Chicago drive

I’ve meant to get a GoPro and do something like this from my bike (when I could ride), but this will have to do for now. Not unlike many in Hyde Park, the driver doesn’t recognize stop signs.

November 26, 2022 by dlschirf Posted in Blog, Chicago Tagged Chicago, Hyde Park, video Reply

Pullman National Monument

words and images Posted on June 20, 2022 by dlschirfJune 24, 2022
June 19, 2022

J had thought to go to Sagawau Canyon or Chicago Botanic Garden, but the roads were too red and the delays too great for my tolerance (33+ minutes!). He suggested the National Park Service property closest to me — Pullman National Monument, about 20 to 25 minutes away via Stony Island, potholes and all.

A ranger who seemed happy to see visitors greeted us and gave us brochures and a neighborhood map. When I saw Cottage Grove and a Metra stop on the map, I realized I pass within a few blocks of the visitor center when I take Metra to Homewood or University Park. The Kensington station is at 115th Street and Cottage Grove. Pullman is near Lake Calumet, Big Marsh Park, Indian Ridge, and Dead Stick Pond, and not far from Hegewisch Marsh and Beaubien Woods. It’s a strange area, abandoned in part by industry, bisected by I-94 and its ceaseless noise, and only partially reclaimed by wetlands.

The visitor center is well laid out. Our ranger friend told us the second and third floors are being developed, and the building across the way, roofed with plastic sheeting, is being restored by the state of Illinois.

As someone who’s not from Chicago and who’s never fully embraced living here, I didn’t know much about Pullman or the economic and labor situation. From the 1890s, I know more about serial killer H. H. Holmes than anything else. Now I know a bit more.

A timeline on the wall shows the history of Pullman, from its association with luxury and its conversion to wartime production (twice) to its final delivery in 1981 to Amtrak. Mixed in are episodes of economic, social, and labor unrest, with federal troops called in, firing on and killing striking laborers.

Other exhibits include a gander at what a Pullman car looked like on the inside, with reproduced seats and ceiling.  A video shows a porter at work putting up a bed and a couple commenting on the car’s luxury. Displays cover the Pullman neighborhood and the restricted life lower-level employees led — what would it be like to sleep, eat, and be entertained within steps of work, with little means to go anywhere else day to day?

Race is part of the rail labor story. While many Pullman porters (most? all?), like one of Michelle Obama’s ancestors, were African American, they were not allowed to join the new rail labor unions. In their conflicts with the upper business classes, the unions turned down help from people with whom they had common cause, apparently without seeing the irony. To be fair, it’s noted that labor leader Eugene Debs did not agree with this choice to exclude African Americans.

One great thing about the visitor center exhibits: They’re tactile and include Braille. Instead of, say, a flat drawing of a Pullman car,  the graphic is grooved or carved so you can feel the shape and details. Sometimes Iv’e wondered if Braille is an endangered language but it seems not.

There’s also a spot where people, mostly children, can write their reactions. I wish I’d taken photos. One wrote that while capitalism has some benefits, it also creates problems, which are listed. That kid is smarter than the average bear, as we used to say.

The exhibits draw such observations out by asking questions about life for laborers, many immigrants, in the shadow of privileged and wealthy owners and leaders, and about the violence of the government response when rail service linking Midwest and West was severed. I’d like to think it wouldn’t happen again, but these are “interesting times,” with income disparity and other inequities driving unrest, overt and covert. While Pullman may seem to be in the distant past, the issues resonate today.

There is, of course, a very good gift shop, where we learned the author of one of the books for sale (which I was buying) was speaking nearby. His talk would have been half over by then, so I passed.

Afterward we drove around a bit to see some of the neighborhood’s highlights and housing. I especially liked the livery stable.

Next to the Lake Hotel, we found Gateway Garden. We’d seen a sign on a house about local honey; J discovered the property contained many, many beehives. They must have more than Gateway Garden to meet their needs. Unlike J, I didn’t see the apiary or meet the owners, but I wonder if they get complaints. I hope not.

See this article from May 2022: ‘Good memories’: Brothers revisit last Pullman passenger rail car they helped build

Pullman National Monument
Pullman National Monument
18 photos
Visitor Center
State of Illinois is working on this building
Pullman car ceiling
Pullman car seat (replica, I assume) — not comfortable
Pullman painter at work
I liked this grill at the Pullman Visitor Center
Yikes
Pullman advertisement "Take it easy"
Livery stable building
Pullman housing, I think, adjacent to livery stable
Lake Hotel
Pullman Gateway Garden
Pullman Gratitude Project
Pullman Gratitude Project
Grateful for cats
Pullman Gateway Garden
Pullman Gateway Garden
Pullman Freight Depot and Gas Works sign
Posted in Adventure, Blog, Chicago | Tagged Chicago, National Monument, National Park Service, photo | 1 Reply

Emergency alert sirens, tornado warnings, NWS, University of Chicago emergency alerts

Or another June afternoon/evening in Chicago, when this is prime time for storms. I like a good storm, but midwestern storms are too intense for me. From my window, fast forwarded to 13:30, when it was getting worse, just before the hail.

June 13, 2022 by dlschirf Posted in Blog, Chicago, Weather Tagged Chicago, Hyde Park, video, weather 1 Reply

Lessons and Carols at Rockefeller Chapel, 2020 style

Normally I’d have taken a couple of Amtrak trains to Pennsylvania for Christmas, but 2020 isn’t normal so here I am in Chicago. Normally if I were in Chicago I’d attend Lessons and Carols for Christmas Eve at Rockefeller Chapel on the University of Chicago campus. But it’s 2020, so here we are. I lit my own candle.

December 26, 2020 by dlschirf Posted in Blog, Chicago, Life, Video Tagged Chicago, holiday, Hyde Park, life, music, video Reply

Chicago water tank

“Iconic” is overused nowadays, but Chicago’s water tanks likely are just that. Often precarious, sometimes dangerous and even deadly, they appear on the rooftops of several of the city’s older buildings. I think this is the only photo I’ve taken of one (from a car) — a Chicago water tank featuring the Chicago city flag design. Iconic.

Chicago water tower (lowercase)
Off I90, aka the Kennedy Expressway
May 15, 2020 by dlschirf Posted in Blog, Chicago Tagged Chicago, photo Reply

Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) in Chicago

Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae)
Washington Park lagoon in Chicago
August 18, 2019

Lately I’ve seen a few news items about blue-green algae killing dogs and taking over parts of Lake Erie. Who knew it was so close to home? Note: It hasn’t stopped people from fishing.

August 19, 2019 by dlschirf Posted in Blog, Chicago Tagged Chicago, Chicago Park District, Hyde Park, nature, photo Reply

Traffic when the Lake Shore Drive bridge cracked

On the morning of Monday, February 11, a CDOT worker discovered a crack in the metal of the northbound lane of the Lake Shore Drive bridge over the Chicago River that made it impassible.

Later that day, here’s what northbound rush-hour traffic looked like south of Millennium Park.

Untitled

Southbound traffic was unaffected.

February 15, 2019 by dlschirf Posted in Blog, Chicago, Photography Tagged Chicago, news, photo Reply

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