NORGE Village

[johnb300m]

I've been wanting to take a picture of this for a few months for you guys, and finally did.
In Dekalb, IL there's this meat market called "Inboden's" and in front of the complex is this marque.
It must've been, back in the day, a laundry center featuring NORGE products. It's interesting, the fact that it's still up.

 

[whirlcool]

These came up in a discussion we had a few months ago where we tracked the history of Norge from beginning to end.
Susposedly there were quite a few of these Norge Villages, and you are right they all used Norge laundry products.

 

[scott55405]

Has anyone ever seen a coinop Norge? Is it a solid or perforated tub? I think there were frontloaders too, though I don't know if they made those themselves.

There were a few of these signs left back in Minnesota, and I believe I've seen one in Tucson as well.

 

[cvillewasherbo]

Waynesboro VA

We have one of those here in town. The Norges left that establishment LONG ago. Now it's SQ and Milnor.
Courtney

 

[gyrafoam]

I have not seen one of those in years! The ones around here finally faded away from years of the hot summer sun.

I remember them as having the perf. tub 'Noges as well as the (20#)'Noge F/L's. and the self-dry-cleaning F/L's.

There were quite a few of them around Atlanta back in the day.

BTW, I came across an old collection of Atlanta telephone books and just briefly dug through them for trivia. I was astounded find that in 1955 Atlanta had no less than 13 'Noge dealers including the old "Davison-Paxon" department stores!

Fast-forward to 1964 and there were 16 'Noge dealers that now included all of the "Haverty's" funiture and appliance stores!

Just four years later in 1968 there were only 3 'Noge dealers left!
I wonder what happened?

It explains why I remember so many "Timelines" around here back in the day, as well as perf.tubs. What is equally strange is why none of them turn-up around here. Surely there must be some hidden away------or maybe they have already been to the krusher. Strange.

 

[cehalstead]

NORGE village

There was a Norge Village here in Charleston until just a few years ago....don't remember the exact date. IIRC, it opened in the mid-60's and the machines were replaced in the mid-70's with Harvest Gold NORGE coin-ops. We took our dry cleaning there and there were times we used the washers,especially when the Lady Trashmores were down (and that was often).

 

[Unimatic1140]

Yes I remember seeing and using Norge Coin-op's once back in 1983 in Staten Island, NY. The funny thing about them was they were the large capacity perforated tub Norges with the neutral drain, the agaitator look like the standard 70's Norge 'tator, but without an birp up recirculation filter and they were black!

John that is a cool picture thank you for taking it. I will have to have fun with Photoshop with that picture and use it as an icon...

 

[MikeS]

Norge Village In The San Fran Valley

I remember very well the Norge Village in Canoga Park, California (on the corner of Fallbrook and Victory, in an addtion just outside what was then the Food Giant Supermarket). It had a dry cleaner, big dryers and a couple of rows of washers--all Norge, of course. That's the laundry my mother would use when our infamous Sears Lady Kenmore of the early 1960's broke down. The nice part was we did the laundry, got the weekly shopping done and came home with clean clothes and a full fridge. Those were the days....!

 

[peterh770]

There was one up here (the polka dot sign, that is) on the north end of town. They took it down about a year ago.

In Rome, NY, the Polka Dot Village was the largest laundry in town. The sign remained up, but by the time I was old enough to go in there, there were GE tops and Philco-Bendix fronts. Another laundry in town had SQ tops billed as single load washers, and Norge tops billed as double loaders!

 

[jetcone]

I remember one in Chatham

we used it every week on vacation. I kept trying to lift the lid in spin before the dreaded solenoid robots locked it down.
Ours were Avocado with the giant black slamatator. They held alot of clothes I remember because this place also had My-T-Boys and it was always a debate wether we could get it all in the Norge's or had to splurge and use the My-T's.

I also used to go around and knock on them singing the knock on any Norge song because that was on TV then and was a regular ad. ( I did that when no one was around).

 

[laundromat]

There used to be a huge Norge Village in Dundalk a town up in Baltimore county,Maryland.It had the 20 pound capacity washers that had agitators with cones around the upper stem so you couldn't easily overload them.Those nubered about 36 in 2 bays of 18 units.The other interesting feature of Norge Village was that they had Norge washer dryer combinations that were divided in two classes.One was a regular everyday machine that washed and dried your clothes there was a boy of 20 units like that.They were turquoise and had neat oval window doors
The other similar units were canary yellow and they were the dry-cleaning machines.Yes you could do ALL of your laundry there self-service and get pretty good results.They had weighing scales and different size boxes for your laundry.

 

[tomturbomatic]

My Gosh y'all are awfully young. The only Norge Village I patronized was beside a grocery store so the folks would send me in with the throw rugs while they shopped. The top loaders were solid tub machines with that powerful wide agitator.

 

[marukap]

Norge Village Memories

I have vivid memories of laundry adventures at the Norge Village near my childhood home in suburban Los Angeles.

I must have been around 16, circa 1976 (since I made my way there under my own steam) and was intent on helping Mom with some surprise cleaning.

It was the first time I had ever used a front loading washer and a big loader at that. I packed it full of (polyester filled) bed pillows and dumped in the usual 1-1/2 cups of Tide that I thought a big load needed.

Guess what happened when those bulky pillows were combined with a truly massive overdose of detergent? – A real I LOVE LUCY moment! The suds forced open the little metal door covering the detergent dispenser and proceeded to make a really kinda fun and pretty fountain of bubbles and foam that, for some reason, caught the eye of the owner of the Village. He ran over, grabbed my bottle of RAIN BARRELL fabric softener and poured just enough into the machine to instantly kill all of those suds. Lucky for me, he was a friend of my parents, so I had to endure only a bit of bemused eye rolling. I must have mopped up the mess with a towel I had with me. That part I don't recall too clearly. Incidentally, those pillows survived the wash and dry but were hopelessly misshapen by the ordeal.

Another very special feature of that Norge Village was an entire wing dedicated to self-service/coin-op DRY CLEANING and PRESSING! The EPA and OSHA must have had a real feeding frenzy when they shut that operation down a few years later, but, I'm telling you, it was better than Disneyland for a young eccentric such as I was. This time I came armed with a couple of Dad's suits. The front-loading machines tumbled the suits through a bath of dry cleaning fluid and then proceeded thorugh a hot air tumble dry. Next, the intrepid do-it-yourselfer chose from a full range of commercial grade steam irons, steam pressers and a steam shaper (looks like a dress dummy) to finish the job. Guess what happens when any newbie, let alone a 16-year-old trys out those bad boys for the first time?. . . 30 years later, I still have scars on my forearms from the steam blasts! Nonetheless I did a good enough job of pressing those suits and Dad was happy to wear them. The steam shaper was particularly fun to use – dress the dummy in a suit jacket, step on the pedal and whooosh, it inflates with high pressure steam, dummy jacket and all.

I survived the experiment, scald burns and all, and had two clean suits to show for myself, but I did not feel the need to repeat the experience. Besides, next time I looked, the DIY dry clean section had disappeared.

Just thought I'd share.

Sincerely,

Martin Kaplan
Saint Louis, MO

 

[drewz]

Norge Village, OLD TOWNE , Alexandria

There was one on the corner of Mt. Vernon Avenue and Monroe Street in Alexandria.

Old Ladies ran a tight ship, no running around, don't touch anything was the motto of the day. Felt like school Sister Mary Catherine, damn brats where is my NORGE ruler!

 

[DADoES]

I don't know if it was formally called a Norge Village, but I recall a family vacation going with Mom to do some washing at a coin-op. The TLs were Norge, I remember the distinctive agitator caps. There were a couple self-serve dry cleaners, and I made the mistake of sticking my head inside one of them and inhaling deeply ......!