Laundry is a chore of everyday life, along with washing dishes and taking out the trash. Sadly, this essential task seems to have gotten much harder in Hell’s Kitchen, where laundromats are closing.
While out of town last week, I received a text from my neighbor alerting me that the ASAN Laundromat on 10th Avenue at the corner of West 51st Street had closed for good. Handwritten signs on the door stated the laundromat was “no more” and gave a number for people to call to pick up any laundry or dry cleaning they had dropped off. I had a feeling something was going on when multiple triple-load washers remained out of order for months.
One blustery January morning, I raced to the laundromat early (to beat the rush) only to find it had not yet opened. Nevertheless, a line was already forming outside, with a small group also waiting in the deli across the street. As soon as the rolling gate went up, the crowd rushed inside before the lights were even turned on. By the time I paid for my coffee at the deli and got to the laundromat, nearly every working washer was in use.
This is the second laundromat to close in the West 50s in less than a year, bringing Hell’s Kitchen to just seven locations. With a cluster of four in the W40s, the others are scattered — with two in the W30s and only one remaining in the W50s.
In a neighborhood filled with pre-war tenements, the criss-crossing of clotheslines strung between buildings was once a common sight. Back then, doing laundry consisted of carrying a pot of water upstairs to boil on the stove before scrubbing by hand. If you lived on a low floor, the benefit of fewer stairs to climb became a hazard when upstairs neighbors’ clotheslines dripped onto yours. Those days have long since passed, replaced by industrial washers and dryers.
While I was researching the history of laundry in Hell’s Kitchen, a 2011 article titled “Lack of Laundromats Making Hell’s Kitchen Desperate & Dirty” from Gothamist popped up. At the time, the closure of laundry facilities was attributed to gentrification, with a nearly one-mile span between W51st and W67th Streets between 8th and 10th Avenues without a single laundromat.
The Laundromat Cafe, at 439 West 50th Street (bw 9/10th Ave), was the first to close last fall. Opened by Jadite Gallery & Framing owner Roland Sainz in the early 2000s, the Laundromat Cafe got its name due to the free coffee available for customers. After 15 years of operating the business, Roland sold it to a neighbor, who later sold it again before the Laundromat Cafe closed permanently in 2023.
Reflecting on his time running the laundromat, Roland told W42ST, “Laundromats are a good business, if you know how to run it. If you don’t know how to run it, you’re going to fail.” To avoid costly mechanic fees, Roland trained his employees how to make basic repairs of fuses and belts, plus regular maintenance to remove excess lint from the dryer drums. The basem*nt of Laundromat Cafe was filled with extra parts so that repairs could be made quickly.
Further south, the BKM Laundromat at 525 9th Avenue (bw W39/40th St) was the address given for a proposed legal cannabis dispensary run by Astor Club NYC. At Manhattan Community Board 4’s (MCB4) February Cannabis Task Force Meeting, the applicants stated they have a relationship with the building’s owner. MCB4 member Joe Restuccia commented, “this location is a laundromat that is heavily used by the community, that this owner installed many years ago, and the idea that we are going to approve a location that displaces a business… There are no more laundromats up and down 9th Avenue, so this is a major business for the neighborhood.” The proposed legal dispensary was denied by the full board at their March meeting with a vote of 19 to 16.
The lack of laundromats in the neighborhood is something I’ve been concerned about for the past couple of years as I’ve experienced more and more people waiting to get a machine. I’ve even floated the idea of a laundromat bar to a few neighbors as a means of subsidizing the cost of washing with beer and wine sales.
Across the pond in the UK, a laundry co-operative has sprung up to fill the void of much needed services. Kitty’s Laundrette in Everton, an area of Liverpool, is “member-owned” and operated by a non-profit organization that reinvests any profits from customers back into the business, allowing them to keep washing rates nearly at cost. Is this a model Hell’s Kitchen could replicate?
As I write, I’m on a train to New Jersey to see family and have brought along a duffle bag filled with laundry to wash for free at my mom’s house. Will this be my new normal when waiting for an open machine in the neighborhood becomes unbearable? Or do I splurge on laundry drop-off services — something I have always been reluctant to try, since I actually enjoy the act of doing laundry.
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