By Bill Lindeke

Copyright minnpost

Stryker Avenue is not a place most people visit, a quiet St. Paul street on an infrequent bus line that serves the community and not much else, which means there are few urban spaces more mundane than a Stryker Avenue laundromat. But since 2019, 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 community “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.

Some 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.

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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 36th 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 most fond of J&R laundromat on Selby Avenue, a building that, astoundingly, has since been remodeled to host a number of different restaurants. Today it’s Pauly’s Pub & Grill, but it always 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. Cinéphiles will recognize that moniker from the classic film “My Beautiful Laundrette” directed by Stephen Frears. The movie celebrated its 40th anniversary this week, and depicts an unusual romance between a gay couple: an idealistic Pakistani immigrant played by Gordon Warnecke and his friend Johnny, a punk played by an always 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.

“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 said ‘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 7th neighborhood, is a former general practice doctor who worked for years in Greater Minnesota before branching into business in her retirement.

“It was during the early 2000s that I really got the entrepreneurial bug,” Gamm told 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.”

Among other amenities and community improvement efforts, Beautiful Laundrette offers an herb garden in the boulevards, framed by some 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; 47 solar panels on the roof; and an annual community 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 said. “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 most 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.”

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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.”

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 many ways still is — the city’s most 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 community 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 public 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 most people are there because the quarter machine works, I can’t help but think that the details and care are felt by all.