 | Disappearing PlacesAn archive and collective map of places that no longer exist, at least not as they once did. |
The Chinese Laundry
Posted On Sunday May 17, 2009 By MudhooksEvery town had at least one, cities often had one or two in every neighbourhood.
The Chinese Laundry.
I can recall that this was still a working laundry when we moved to New Edinburgh, a working-class neighbourhood on the east side of Ottawa, in the mid-1960s. New Edinburgh is now an upscale enclave with a few of the original working-class families still not pushed out by the monster homes and Yuppified historic homes.
Even the Chinese Laundry has a toney new paint-job, if only barely covering its heritage facade, and is a private home. I’m not sure if the people who live there are even aware of the industrial history of their home.
The Chinese Laundry was the precursor to the dry-cleaner and the coin-operated laundromat, in the pre-electric days. Before people could afford their own washing machine, had running water piped into their homes, and after women moved out of the home and into the workplace, the Chinese laundry was the only place you could get your washing done.
Single men and women who worked took their week’s worth of wash to the laundry and it was washed, dried, ironed, pressed and starched by the end of the day.
Because of discrimination, lack of English language skills (or French, in Quebec) and lack of money it was also one of the few avenues of enterprise open to most Chinese (or any other Asians) besides the ubiquitous Chinese Chop Suey house.
Tags: chinese, laundry, ottawa
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Lyons Township Junior College
Posted On Thursday April 23, 2009 By Dale HobartIt sat atop the high school and had about 200 students. I was lucky to be there with a group of very creative students. We created a radio station and Produced/Directed/Wrote/Performed a musical review called “Life Along the Q”(Burlington and Quincy commuter line to Chicago).
Student government elections were unusual. The second year students pick teams, like sand lot baseball and each team set up a slate of candidates. The final campaign event was a parade through downtown LaGrange ending at a county park for a picnic/fundraiser. I don’t remember what we raised funds for.
One of the members of the group The Crying Shames was a student so they performed often at the dances that were held in the hall.
We called it tick tock tech, because the deans office was located in the bell tower of the school. The broadcast boot of the radio station was above the deans office. We had to make sure that we were playing a record or tape whenever the bells rang because you could not hear the announcer over the bells.
There was a student lounge on the floor with the classrooms. For entertainment we started out bridge, however, the dean decided that we were missing too many classes so banned cards from the lounge. We took up tiddly winks. The dean surrendered.
It no longer exists, it was merged into a regional community college system. We all received a great education the professors were excellent (some of the best I ever had anywhere). The small size meant that you knew everyone and we got to create events and times that would have been more difficult at a larger place because we may have never found out what the others in the class could do or wanted to try.
Tags: college, junior
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Manhattan Alco
Posted On Wednesday September 3, 2008 By GeoMe and my friends spent many an afternoon browsing for cheap off-brand crap. It was the beginning of the end when shasta bought out the Dr.Duck brand, and now a huge truckload of adolescent memories will be lost forever. Graduation is coming, and I’ll be leaving this town, but ALCO left first.
Tags: alco
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