Hell's Kitchen continues to be a highly desirable neighborhood for many New Yorkers, but living in the HeKi (our coinage&msash;you're welcome Corcoran) isn't without sacrifice. Local residents who don't have washer/dryers in their buildings are finding it increasingly annoying to get their laundry done! One of the neighborhood's last laundromats, on 53rd Street and Ninth Avenue, recently closed, leaving behind, the Post reports, "a mile-long, laundry-less desert between Eighth and Tenth Avenues." This heavy news comes on the heels of Second Wave Laundry, the largest Laundromat in the neighborhood on 55th Street and Ninth Avenue, closing because the landlord threatened to raise the rent from $14,000 to $20,000 a month and demanded an $80,000 security deposit.
Now Hell's Kitchen locals are throwing "champagne and laundry parties" in apartments with washing machines. Others simply do their laundry in the sink. For this very reason, Councilwoman Gale Brewer has introduced a resolution to give tax breaks to owner-operated city businesses. "This is the most basic challenge to the crisis of the lack of mom-and-pop stores in the city," says Brewer. "It's beyond frustrating." And Christine Gorman, president of the West 55th Block Association, tells the tabloid, "The Laundromats are fleeing our area. The services in our neighborhood are disappearing. There's rumors that the Laundromat is going to become a Citibank." At least that's welcome news for anybody in Hell's Kitchen who needs some money laundered.
