Jan. 20, 1936: For this installment of Rediscovering Los Angeles, Times artist Charles Owens and columnist Timothy Turner visit a Chinese laundry on Figueroa near Temple.
Turner writes:
It was a busy hive before John Chinaman cut off his pigtail, back when he had the quaint custom of taking a huge mouthful of water and spraying it over the bone-dry clothes before he applied the iron. This traditional custom was finally broken by threats and pleadings of municipal health officers, who accomplished the substitution of a tin mechanical sprayer.
“Chinatown,” anyone?
