Days Numbered For Historic Ann Arbor Business

(Editor's Note: Following is the first of a series on the buildings scheduled to be torn down to make way for the new federal building in Ann Arbor. Further articles will appear in the next few days.) The maize and blue Varsity Laundry building will soon strike its colors at 300 South Fifth Avenue. The building is one in a parcel of properties assembled to make way for the new federal office building in Ann Arbor. Other structures include the Masonic Temple, Eberbach Building, Gates Hospital and three r o o m i n g houses on Fourth and Fifth Avenues. When three young Germán immigrants founded the original Varsity Steam Laundry here in 1903, two things were significant. The maize and blue colors, adopted from the University's varsity team, and the use of steam. Horse drawn wagons for Varsity Steam Laundry were painted blue and boasted real gilt lettering. The color scheme was carried on in the company's modern plant and its trucks. The use of steam signaled the beginning of large commercial laundries that handled domestic work and such companies were quick to point this out in their advertising of high-class efficiënt laundry work. Prior to that laundry work was done by hand laundries run mostly by Chinese. ,At first Varsity's business included a large amount of domestic cleaning work, but commercial work b e c a m e dominant. When the Dalitz brothers, Nathan and Barnet, bought the laundry in 1924, fairly efficiënt equipment with specially designated units for different garments was available. ,In 1927 the company made an effort to attract more commercial w o r k and supplied linen to restaurants, doctors and dentists, drug stores, Ifraternities, professional offices, and factories and handtowels to stores. ''The equipiiienl in üïï original steam laundry was a 1 1 steam-driven, but there was lot of hand work to be done," remarked Morris Dalitz, the last owner of Varsity Laundry. "Girls who worked.in 1908, for example, might eiirn from $3 to $7 a week for as much as 14 hours of work a day. They were paid by the week," Dalitz added, "and the hours depended on t h e workload. Eiecework incentives c a m e later," he said. The three founding partners, Fred Lantz, H. B. Tenny and Clarence Snyder operated their steam laundry at 215-217 S. Fourth Avenue. Operations were moved in 1915 to the modern plant at [300 S. Fifth, where they , mained until the business was sold in 1965. Account books from 1911 give some idea of prices and wages in those early days. The company had three or f o u r wagons and around a dozen or so employés. It spent $250 per week for wages and the partners each drew $15. The laundry. averaged $700 income each week - The expenses for the year totaled $22,924, and from this came such items as monthly rent of $39, stable rent of $3, a coal bill that ranged from $80 to $120 per month plus $60 to $90 for electricity, water and gas'each month, and $15 to $20 for hay each month. There were bilis of $30 to $50 for oats, soap and soda as needed. (Varsity's water, electric and gas bilis in the 1960s were about $1,500 per month. ) In 1911 there were occasional expenses such as 50 cents a week to sprinkle down the unpaved streets in front of each business property, a few dollars for harness repair and horseshoeing, $121.35 for a new wagon, and occasional doctor or medical bilí for an injuredworker. Much of the family cleaning was done in these steam laundries during the early 20th Century. "Right after World War I," says Dalitz, "there was quite a boom in laundry work. Men had war bonuses to spena ana ttiey turned themselves into Fancy Dans to attract the young women." Men those days wore shirts with detachable collars and a man might bring in 20 to 25 collars at a time to be laundered for a nickel a piece. He'd get them back in three I aays to a week, so he hdtoi nave quite a collar supply I "They changed their collars I every day," said Dalitz ..and smell " tS Whe" the Started ío How often was that? "Itdepends." Dalitz began working at age 14 when his father and únele moved to Ann Arbor from Detroit to take over the laundry. I Dalitz' first job was as a I "jumper." "I jumped on and off the I delivery trucks while the 1 er sat and waited," he 1 called with a rueful chuckle. I "The oíd fire station was onl my route," he said. "I alwaysl had quite a load to haul down-l stairs there, so I'd hpok myl right arm around the pole and slide down just as the firemen did. It was great fun," he said. This went on for a few deliveries until the chief caught him and scolded him. "We always have to grease the pole after you go down it because you have short sleeves." That stopped all the fun. Dalitz became a driver and salesman and gave up his studies in literature and j business at the University in 1931 in order to go to work full time. He became manager of the plant before he went into the service during World War II and returned to the plant after the war. By that time his father and uncle were aging and Dalitz took on added responsibilities in management. Barnet Dalitz took on added responsibilities in management. Barnet Dalitz died in 1960 and Nathan, Morris' father, died in 1964. "Paper towels came into luse in 1937 or 1938," he recalled, "but people were slow Ito convert." Later Dalitz reallized that the trend was going Ito be to paper, and he obItained franchises f o r paper garments and wiping supplies so t h a t Varsity would still have something to sell. Dalitz also supplied paper garments to p e o p 1 e using radioactive materials such as taking x-ray and doing research and development work. The laundry business continued to become more automated and efficiënt during the years Dalitz was in it. In 1924, for example, a threegirl shirt unit could to 42 shirts an hour and there was still hand finishing to do. In the 1 9 6 0 s a two-girl team could' do 90 to 100 shirts an hour. Air driers and sophisticated units made the work faster and easier. Domestic laundry work gradually phased down as housewives got more efficiënt home washing machines. Post World War II apartments added laundries and c o i n - 1 operated laundromats openedj in towns and cities. The old laundries had to convert to linen supply rentáis I of industrial and professional clothes and cleaning materials, Dalitz explained, or go out of business. Varsity's work was over 80 per cent linen supply when he sold it in 1965 to General Linen Supply Co. Varsity still exists as Varsity Linen in Ypsilanti and its m a i z e and blue colors fly there. Dalitz, however, washed his hands of the laundry business and opened a real estáte office two years ago. But he's still where he can keep an eye on the old property, right across the street in a century-old brick house that once served as a funeral parlor.