Finding an urban escape in laundromats whose owners care about community

Stryker Avenue is not a place preponderance people visit a quiet St Paul street on an infrequent bus line that serves the population and not much else which means there are scant urban spaces more mundane than a Stryker Avenue laundromat But since a business named Beautiful Laundrette has been quietly improving people s lives on this West Side street By working a little bit at a time it transformed a utilitarian cleaner into a district third space and a pillar of a working-class neighborhood I have long had an interest in laundromats I went for more than a decade without my own washing machine and while that s mostly a big inconvenience there are silver linings For one I became a connoisseur of laundromat design I wandered the city for years in search of ideal architecture and vibes in which to spend a couple hours in the middle of the day tediously attending the humming machines and dispensing pocketfuls of quarters Chosen of my favorite laundromat qualities buildings extending right up to the sidewalk buildings with lots of windows businesses within walking distance of a corner store or coffee shop laundromats with the right kind of lighting and ideally a place to sit outside on a nice day Related New St Paul co-living duplex cracks the code of affordability and low-carbon housing That s a tall order for a utilitarian building with I presume thin profit margins but over the years I developed my favorites In Minneapolis Kingfield neighborhood I discovered City Coin Laundry on th Street which featured great windows right on the street was within walking distance of Lyndale Avenue and even had a rare outdoor pop machine In St Paul I was majority of fond of J R laundromat on Selby Avenue a building that astoundingly has since been remodeled to host a number of different restaurants In the current era it s Pauly s Pub Grill but it inevitably feels a bit amusing to drink a beer and eat french fries where the massive Huebsch washer used to be stationed They still have the old laundromat sign in the back hallway by the bathrooms After I left St Paul s West Side my closest laundromat was sold to a new owner Returning later I was astonished to discover its new name Beautiful Laundrette Cin philes will recognize that moniker from the classic film My Beautiful Laundrette directed by Stephen Frears The movie celebrated its th anniversary this week and depicts an remarkable romance between a gay couple an idealistic Pakistani immigrant played by Gordon Warnecke and his friend Johnny a punk played by an constantly riveting Daniel Day Lewis The film holds up well as a fun and edgy romp that deals with still-relevant topics like immigration homophobia and urban decline versus entrepreneurial optimism Needing to wash a rug the other day and curiosity piqued I headed over to Beautiful Laundrette to check out the much improved corner of Stryker Avenue Gone was the old infamous corner store a place long scarred by drug activity In its place was an affordable housing project and right next door Beautiful Launderette was looking great Beautiful Laundrette on the corner of Elizabeth St West and Stryker Ave in St Paul Credit Bill Lindeke I didn t know about My Beautiful Laundrette when I first had this idea to purchase a laundromat admitted Laurel Gamm the owner of the rebranded West Side laundry One of my dear friends commented Oh you have to watch this I watched the movie and sure enough it was perfect Thus the business got its name joining a handful of other My Beautiful Laundrette -named businesses all around the world in Australia South Africa and as you d expect three or four in England Gamm who lives nearby in the West th neighborhood is a former general practice practitioner who worked for years in Greater Minnesota before branching into business in her retirement It was during the early s that I really got the entrepreneurial bug Gamm reported me I was ending my career as a physician and I transitioned from my clinical work and purchased a laundromat before I retired Then within a couple of years I was doing the laundromat full time An herb garden grows outside Beautiful Laundrette in St Paul Credit Bill Lindeke Among other amenities and district improvement efforts Beautiful Laundrette offers an herb garden in the boulevards framed by several chairs under the tree a new mural depicting a Mexican landscape matching the ethnic legacy of the neighborhood a bilingual library of children s books and adult texts solar panels on the roof and an annual area festival in the parking lot with free food a band and a bouncy house It was an opportunity to step it up a notch with paint ceilings and lighting Gamm explained The first thing I did was tear down all the signs that say No this or No that or No littering and just give people respect Say you re welcome here and the majority people realize you don t smoke in laundromats We were able to take down all those signs and spruce it up and oh boy subsequently the parking lot is fresh and we have a new mural Related New murals will beautify Lake Street in Minneapolis and endorsement small businesses Beautiful Laundrette also serves up a legal clinic once a month something that s sorely needed on the West Side these days They draw on Gamm s connections from her former practice in New Ulm to work with Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services Mitchell-Hamline Law School and a nonprofit called All Square to help with immigration expungements and pardons As Gamm says Records haunt people unnecessarily They ve already paid for their mistake and shouldn t have to suffer the rest of their days A bilingual library of children s books and adult texts at Beautiful Laundrette Credit Bill Lindeke Even though it s on a quiet street in a quiet part of a quiet neighborhood maybe one of the more obscure spots you ll find in the Twin Cities The subtle improvements to what would otherwise be and in several solutions still is the city s majority humdrum type of establishment is remarkable Yet if you go to Beautiful Launderette on any given day you won t find a Sesame Street-style locality full of intimacy and laughter You still find people killing time as clothes spin endlessly in an array of machines Even with better lighting and an edible pollinator garden anyone fated to an afternoon of washing clothes in population remains largely bored Folding waiting and enduring the timeless tedium of laundry a scrubbing wringing chore to which countless generations almost entirely women have sacrificed lifetimes But that s exactly why Beautiful Laundrette is a solace Whether anyone realizes it or not the place brings a little bit of appreciation into the midst of an everyday slog Even if the majority of folks doing laundry inside have no idea that the name is shared by an obscure European art film and even if bulk people are there because the quarter machine works I can t help but think that the details and care are felt by all The post Finding an urban escape in laundromats whose owners care about public appeared first on MinnPost