Photo: Architectural drawing of the Coinmach Laundry Corporation Building, 1983. Courtesy of Roslyn Landmark Society.
By: Sophia Lian
The Waterfront at Roslyn, built in 1984 at 55 Lumber Road, was once the factory and office building of Coinmach Laundry, the leading coin-operated laundry equipment supplier in the U.S. In 2000, the property began to be subdivided into multiple new commercial businesses. Before the change, the Roslyn location served as the Coinmach Laundry Corporation’s executive office.
The Coinmach Corporation was founded in 1946 by the Sussman family in Long Island City. The business started with one coin-operated washing machine and dryer in one apartment building in Queens. Soon, the business expanded to other apartment complexes because apartment supervisors found the Coinmach Corporation's services affordable and convenient.
As the market changed in the 1980s, Coinmach Corporation implemented new strategies to make its services more competitive and encourage the continued use of central laundry rooms as opposed to individual unit washers and dryers. This included installing larger dryers to be more time efficient and providing enhanced repair assistance. By the 1990s, the company had even installed computer systems that enabled building residents to call in to laundry rooms to determine machine availability.
The Coinmach Laundry Corporation continued to grow over the years and gained new sources of revenue from all over the country by acquiring other laundry equipment companies. It eventually outgrew the Roslyn office space and by 2000 the building was sold to Ian Zwerdling and his business partners. It was subsequently subdivided and now houses approximately ten local businesses, including the Grit Ninja, as well as the Howard & Roz Kroplick Classic Car Collection.
To learn more about the history of Coinmach Laundry Building, visit the Roslyn Landmark Society’s website at roslynlandmarks.org/profiles. You can also visit the Bryant Library’s Local History Collection at localhistory.bryantlibrary.org/to explore more of Roslyn’s historical past.
Sophia Lian is a Roslyn Landmark Society 2024 Gardiner Young Scholars Program high school intern as part of the new “Young Historians” collaboration between the Roslyn Landmark Society and Blank Slate Media. Special thanks to the Bryant Library’s Local History Collection for providing research assistance. Read the full article in the Roslyn Times here: https://theisland360.com/rosly...
Sources included:
https://www.roslynlandmarks.org/profiles/waterfront-at-roslyn
https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-magazines/coinmach-laundry-corporation
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