Question for the vintage Norge macherim-----

[gyrafoam]

Les,

I remember Kelvy's all over the place, same for Norge and Philco. Speed Queen was the rarity. There was a guy in my bar mitzvah class who's father was some big macher with SQ. I think their last name was Greene, I don't recall what they had in Atlanta at the time. In any event they lived on the other side of Paces Ferry from me. They always had a new set of SQ's in the laundry room to watch. The Margols owned The Big Red Furniture Barn and they sold Hotpoints. Their home was where I saw my first set of Lady Executives.

If I have to think of the machines I saw little of in the '50's and '60's they would be SQ's and Whirlpools automatics.The only time I ever saw a Blackstone is if someone from the north east moved in. There were plenty of people around Atlanta with Easy Spinner manual machines and plenty of SQ manuals. The coin laundries were almost always SQ, Bendix, Westinghouse, Norge, or Frigidaire. Eventually Whirlpool coin laundries appeared.

My first memory of a coin laundry was a hole in the wall little place near the "picture show" (theatre) in East Atlanta. It was a row of old Bendix diving bells. My best friends grandparents lived over there so it was a treat to drop in and watch people trying to kill those Bendix's.

 

[lesto]

In my southwest Atlanta neighborhood we had a Norge Village laundromat. It still had some solid tub machines with the overflow rinse towards the back of the laundromat and in the front some newer perforated tub models. There was also a Frigidaire coin laundry that had the mid 60's jet cone machines in sunny yellow and a round window in the lid. For some odd reason there were four blue Easy top loaders there as well.

 

[vacerator]

Yes, the Sears

revolving charge was very popular. It was the only credit card my parents had.
Our local gas company offered credit terms for Hamilton laundry equipment.

 

[cornutt]

Regional brand preferences

Alabama Power also had those types of deals on machines. But north of the Tennessee River we were under TVA, and they weren't allowed to do that. So we had lots of independent appliance stores (a few of which are still in business), and the department stores. There was an independent department store here called Miracle City that I recall having an extensive selection of appliances and electronics. There was an RCA retail store that sold Whirlpools back when they had their marketing agreement.

In houses around here, I recall mainly Kenmores (Sears was big here), Whirlpool, Fridigaire, Maytag and Westinghouse. There were some Philcos around; I think this may have been due to people here who worked for Philco's aerospace division. There were a few Speed Queens probably for the same reason, and I recall at least one laundry equipped with Speed Queens. There was a big Norge Village (which included a row of the self-service dry cleaning machines), but I don't recall seeing too many Norges in homes. I had never heard of Blackstone or Easy until I started reading here.