Vintage Laundromat Photos

[cornutt]

Kevin's #8 was an absolutely typical Norge Village. The one here was, to my memory, nearly identical down to the paneling -- I think the floor was probably different, but that's it. I might have even seen some of those clothes... And note that #8-10 are all Norge self service dry cleaning machines.

 

[Unimatic1140]

Another good one to add to this collection in this thread!

 

[luxflairguy]

I've never hear of Breeze or Trend brands. Any idea of machine brands?

 

[launderess]

Breeze was a budget brand detergent from Lever Bros. Key to their fame was boxes included a free Canon towel as give away. Of course that towel ate into how much product could be put in box.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeze_detergent

Trend is another budget brand made by Henkel/Dial Corp

https://www.trenddetergent.com/powder-detergents/trend-classic-powder

Origianlly a Purex product introduced in 1946 as a light duty powdered detergent. Trend morphed over the years into a general wash day product the rest is here.

"In 1982, Purex Industries, Inc. was acquired in a leveraged buyout by Gibbons, Green and van Amerongen Ltd., the predecessor of Leonard Green & Partners.[6][7] In 1985, the household and consumer products business of Purex Industries, Inc. was acquired by Greyhound Corporation[8] and was combined with Greyhound's Armour-Dial to form The Dial Corporation. By the 1990s, Purex would discontinue its bleach product to focus on laundry detergents."

https://www.ebay.com/itm/294172864698?hash=item447e11b0ba:g:k0cAAOSwER1gm-vO

Purex (laundry detergent) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Trend still is a brand today.
IIRC only liquid form now but until a couple years back it still came in powder form.
The brand is a Dial Brand subsidiary of Henkel now totally Henkel.
Looks like it was common in the North East area, NYC area.
Could see lots of powder packets displayed in shop's windows in the Queens or Harlem back in 2016...and tried it out. Not bad but not even impressed.

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Breeze is still a Unilver brand in some countries
I tried Jamaican Breeze and it was very good!

 

[kenmoreguy89]

I'm also curious

Robert what's the washers brand in your pic?

 

[luxflairguy]

Thank you Laundress!

 

[rpms]

My mom,grandmother and aunt all used Breeze detergent just for the free towels. They came in pink,green,yellow and blue floral. Not the greatest towel but they seem to last. My cousin still has a couple of her mom's. They seem to be heavy on harvest gold and green. You had to wait forever to get the nice pink and blue. You could take the towel out of the box and it was so heavy ladden with soap you could toss it in the wash and didn't have to add detergent.
At the end they started only putting wash clothes in.

 

[circlew]

Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner did  TV commercials for Breeze in the early 70's.

 

This was not a detergent my mom bought very often, as she didn't think it was a good value. We had good towels and washcloths, so didn't need to get any in a box of detergent. I remember asking her to get a box that contained a Cannon washcloth, which she did. If the cloth was even half as thick as the Cannon washclothes we already had, I'd be surprised. We used it, but it didn't take long until it was threadbare. I don't think she used the Breeze in the washer much, but it got used for mopping the basement floor, cleaning porch furniture, etc.

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

Here is the only vintage laundromat I’ve been to

Unfortunately the house closed got taken over by a mean old bat

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

Oh sorry, I meant for it to say place not house

My bad

 

[chachp]

Ironing board.

 

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">I never saw a laundromat with an ironing board.  Is that common there?</span>

 

[gansky1]

#40 - Looks like Norge washers there. 

 

 

Ironing - 

 

There is an old coin laundry store in Minneapolis that has coin operated ironing equipment, a steam flat press, etc.  Robert and I stood and watched a couple of ladies press nearly all of their laundry, t-shirts, jeans, etc.  It was fascinating and all of the clothes looked so neat and crisp.

The washers were still double-load Bendix/Dexter.  

 

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

It’s quite rare and this

Was in attended laundromat which probably explains why there was an ironing board in front of the two vintage Westinghouse washers

 

[seedub]

Reply# 48

Breeze offered a free gift inside the box - towels. Mrs. Parton was so cute the way she'd say "daisiz" (sic).

 

[Unimatic1140]

Yes those are Norge solid-tub coin-op washers in the picture I posted.

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Norge

Oh yeah. Dang! I kind of forgot about those that did the magic minute thing and had the glass on the lid

 

[tomturbomatic]

Was Snorge the only top loader with a spring-loaded lid?

 

[appnut]

If Whirlpool had any coin-laundry units in the late 1950s, wouldn't theirs have been spring-loaded? I remember our Norge solid-tub models that we went to in like 1962 or 1963 wasn't spring-loaded.