question for fic

Question for fic.

Would people have used a laundromat, an apartment complex's laundry room, or had their own washer and dryer in the sixties-seventies in Chicago?

ETA: Clarification: working class neighborhoods.

Comments

[ladyholder.livejournal.com]

While I have no idea of the answer, I still have blink. You always have the *weirdest* questions. And I find that I am curious as to the answer!

~L

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I like to think I bring something to the table. *g*

[ladyholder.livejournal.com]

You always bring many new, interesting and cool things to the table. Really.

~L

[jolielaide.livejournal.com]

hm! i suspect the answer would be highly variable, depending on the people in question.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I was worried about that. It feels like apartment complex or laundromat, but I can't be sure. I am the very essence of not-raised-northern-urban, so my frame of reference is very limited.

[flaming-muse.livejournal.com]

I think the answer would vary wildly, but I can say that my father in college in the late 60s in non-Chicago Illinois would go to the local laundromat.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*nods* That makes sense to me. I just keep wondering when complexes starting adding in the basement laundry rooms.

[ladyholder.livejournal.com]

Quick question... How upscale is the complex you are thinking of? Because I think it would be the more upscale they are, the sooner they added the laundry rooms.

~L

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Lower-middle to working-middle.

[ladyholder.livejournal.com]

Then given the response below, I am guessing a laundry-mat.

~L

Washing in the windy city

[la-sigh.livejournal.com]

Hey there.
I went to school in Chicago in the mid seventies, Lived in an apt and had to take my laudry to the laudromat. It was a nice neighborhood but not too up scale. I remember helping a buddy do his undies in a basement laundry of his building. He had a great place.
Does that help?

I'm still missing the clex from you, sugar.

Re: Washing in the windy city

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Oh, you are *awesome*. *bouncy* Thank you!

[grammarwoman]

My folks lived in an apartment in a closely-outlying suburb of Chicago in the late 60s, early 70s, and they did their laundry in the building's laundry room.

If that data point helps any...

[seperis.livejournal.com]

You all make me *ridiculously* happy. It is surprisingly difficult to google laundry habits in Chicago pre-eighties. *sighs* Maybe I didn't use the right keywords.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I can tell you about Detroit (which isn't too far off the map). Apartments didn't really have washing machines, that was for houses.

Most people in older buildings used landromats, especially if it's in the city. In the suburbs you're more likely to have a newer building with a laundry room.

[saffronhouse.livejournal.com]

Laundromat. (I mean, that's practically still the case in Brooklyn -- it was the case in West LA in the 90s) so 30-40 years ago in Chicago? Yes. You're safest with a laundromat

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

it was the case in West LA in the 90s

...Really? I've lived in LA all my life and every apartment building I've ever seen has had a laundry room.

[teenygozer.livejournal.com]

I vote landromat for a working class neighborhood, where it is entirely legal to smoke cigarettes so that clean laundry can once again become dirty laundry mere moments after you've pulled it fresh from the dryer.

To this day, you can freakin' smoke in a freakin' laundromat. SO ANNOYING.

[bkwyrm.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a Chicago resident, it depends on what neighborhood and the type of apartment building. They'd probably take it to the laundromat.

[dine.livejournal.com]

caveat - I"ve never lived in Chicago:

however, at least part of the answer lies in what sort of housing they're in. do they live in a detached house, which would be more likely to have a washer/dryer in that era (assuming they're not completely poverty-level). if in some sort of apartment, it might depend on the age of the building/neighborhood, but if there's space in the building I'd guess there might well be some sort of laundry facility available (in the basement probably).

[poisontaster]

It would be highly unlikely that they'd have a w/d in their apartment. Most of Chicago, ESP. working class apartments do not come with w/d. When I was a kid, we went to the laundromat. I don't think we ever lived in a building that had a in-house laundry ROOM until I was in my late teens.

Further, it would depend on what you wanted to wash. A lot of the time, even if you HAVE an in-house laundry, you go to the laundromat because the washers are bigger and in better condition. Esp. if you want to wash quilts, comforters, pillows, etc.

[nola-nola.livejournal.com]

In 1968, I moved into my first apartment in an older building close to downtown Minneapolis. It was a one-room basement efficiency with pipes running along the ceiling, I paid around $70 a month, utilities included.

The building had a laundry room with three or four coin operated washers and dryers.

[djinanna.livejournal.com]

Asked my mom. We both agree that in the 60s-70s, in a low- to middle-class working neighborhood, if living in an apartment complex, it was more likely that one would use a laundromat. Maybe the exception would be for a very new building built with all the "mod cons".

I grew up in the 2nd floor apartment of a two-flat. If the owners/1st floor dwellers hadn't been my grandparents (they of the basement laundry room), we would have needed to go to a laundromat. As it was, the grandparents did our laundry. I didn't learn how to sort laundry, etc, until I went away to drop out of grad school in the early 80s...