IMCO & Swastika Laundries

TheScribbler

Hi everyone

Board.ie is new to me and I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this but here goes anyway. I research and write articles on historic businesses as a hobby interest and I wonder if anyone can help me locate old photographs or advertisements relating to: (1) IMCO Cleaners & Dyers that used to have that wonderful Art Deco building near Merrion Gates on the Rock Road and (2) Swastika Laundry at Ballsbridge. I can remember those bright red electric vans with the swastika emblazoned on the sides from when I was a kid in the 1950s.

Maybe you've got old pictures kicking around at home or old newspaper advertisements from the 1940s and 50s! I would appreciate it any help you can give here,

Thank you

MarchDub

TheScribbler wrote: »

Hi everyone

Board.ie is new to me and I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this but here goes anyway. I research and write articles on historic businesses as a hobby interest and I wonder if anyone can help me locate old photographs or advertisements relating to: (1) IMCO Cleaners & Dyers that used to have that wonderful Art Deco building near Merrion Gates on the Rock Road and (2) Swastika Laundry at Ballsbridge. I can remember those bright red electric vans with the swastika emblazoned on the sides from when I was a kid in the 1950s.

Maybe you've got old pictures kicking around at home or old newspaper advertisements from the 1940s and 50s! I would appreciate it any help you can give here,

Thank you

A search on Google images brings up a load of images of the Swastika laundry vans. I also remember them from when I was a kid - they were up and down the Dublin neighbourhood roads until the late 1960s I think.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/58/193597110_25cf3f3673.jpg?v=0

http://blog.fylfotfile.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/swastika-laundry-300x226.jpg

FiSe

There were some pictures over in 'Classic cars' section of the boards a while ago as well

donaghs

I'd be very interested to see a picture of the IMCO Cleaners & Dyers if you can find one and post it.

pablomakaveli

Before the Nazis used it the swastika was considered a lucky symbol. It's been found on shields from a couple of thousands of years ago in England and on buildings in India. I've even heard of British soldiers in WW1 having swastikas on their whiskey flasks for luck.

Interestingly the Nazi version of the swastika is an inverted one.

I doubt the laundries use of the symbol has any sinister meaning.

MarchDub

pablomakaveli wrote: »

Before the Nazis used it the swastika was considered a lucky symbol. It's been found on shields from a couple of thousands of years ago in England and on buildings in India. I've even heard of British soldiers in WW1 having swastikas on their whiskey flasks for luck.

Interestingly the Nazi version of the swastika is an inverted one.

I doubt the laundries use of the symbol has any sinister meaning.

You are absolutely correct - the Dublin laundry predates the Nazi use by many years and it was considered to be a lucky symbol.

FiSe

It is still considered a lucky symbol /in Hinduism/, sun, lightning and so on... The original swastika, not the mirrored 45degrees turned symbol of Nazi party.

TheScribbler

Thanks for your ciomments to date and to MarchDub for the images of Swastika vans. The first one (the brighter red one) is genuine but the second was one that was made up for a film a couple of years ago. Frankly it makes the van look sinister, as though it was being viewed in Nazi Germany.

Swastika was founded in 1912 by the Britton family and they got the idea of the name and logo from an Indian good luck charm. It has often been said that the logos of the laundry and the National Socialist Party differed in that the logo of the latter had the symbol set diamond pattern whereas Swastiika Laundry had it set square. Actually the deifference is only partly true. In the early days of the Nazi party their rallies would often carry a Swastika banner in square format. This can often be seen in old newsreel footage. The diamond pattern was only formally adopted in the mid 1930s.

Anyway people, please keep the information flowing. Again if anyone has any old photographs of the Swastika Laundry (remember the tall chimney with the white Swastika on the top) and/or the wonderful Art Deco building used by IMCO, I would be grateful.

Thanks

PS: This is a really good blog site don't you think?

MarchDub

TheScribbler wrote: »

Thanks for your ciomments to date and to MarchDub for the images of Swastika vans. The first one (the brighter red one) is genuine but the second was one that was made up for a film a couple of years ago. Frankly it makes the van look sinister, as though it was being viewed in Nazi Germany.

Thanks for that info - yes, I did wonder about the second image. The van looked different and I did think the setting looked more like Germany than Dublin. What was the film that it was made for?

I am searching through some old photo books for any IMCO picture. I did find their radio ad jingle on the web but I suspect you have that.

TheScribbler

I vaguely remember the jingle. The company was started by a man called Bernard Spiro in Grafton Street as 'The Invisible Mending Company.' They only got into dry cleaning because they kept sending clothes out to be kleened that had been left in with them for repair! The rest was history.

The amazing builidng at Rock Road had been remodelled into its Art Deco form by a prominent London designer and architect called Oliver Bernard whose famous Art Deco lobby interior of the Strand Hotel was recently recreated in the V&A Museum when the hotel was gutted a while back. How the Spiro's came to engage him is a mystery and it is a crying shame that the planners let that building go as it was unique. Had it been in GB or NI it would have been preserved. Some of Bernard's creations are used as location sets by the makers of the Poirot TV series.

TheScribbler

This is a mere anecdotal thought (and not just to push this topic back up the ratings), but what happened to the Swastika logos that adorned the old chimney in Ballsbridge for years after the laundry business was closed. I am aware that the chimney was preserved but where did the swastika go?

Fuinseog

pablomakaveli wrote: »

Before the Nazis used it the swastika was considered a lucky symbol. It's been found on shields from a couple of thousands of years ago in England and on buildings in India. I've even heard of British soldiers in WW1 having swastikas on their whiskey flasks for luck.

Interestingly the Nazi version of the swastika is an inverted one.

I doubt the laundries use of the symbol has any sinister meaning.

the swatika laundry was set up in 1912, long before the nazis. there is a lot of ignorance surrounding the swatika. it is still a very potent religious symbol for many cultures. if you still want to see swastikas in dublin take a look at the glass door on the national museum in kildare street. i believe they could be grecian.

Zebra3

Loads of them on the walls inside Francis St. RC church too.

ejmaztec

TheScribbler wrote: »

I vaguely remember the jingle. The company was started by a man called Bernard Spiro in Grafton Street as 'The Invisible Mending Company.' They only got into dry cleaning because they kept sending clothes out to be kleened that had been left in with them for repair! The rest was history.

The amazing builidng at Rock Road had been remodelled into its Art Deco form by a prominent London designer and architect called Oliver Bernard whose famous Art Deco lobby interior of the Strand Hotel was recently recreated in the V&A Museum when the hotel was gutted a while back. How the Spiro's came to engage him is a mystery and it is a crying shame that the planners let that building go as it was unique. Had it been in GB or NI it would have been preserved. Some of Bernard's creations are used as location sets by the makers of the Poirot TV series.

When you consider the scale of post WW2 reconstruction across Europe, and how thousands of historic buildings rose from the ashes, then compare that to the philistine attitude of Irish planners in ditching unique buildings for the sake of a few quid, it's a huge joke.

Fuinseog

Zebra3 wrote: »

Loads of them on the walls inside Francis St. RC church too.

I am surprised the so-called anti nazi league SWp haven't burnt it down

TheScribbler

For the record I have been told that the Swastikas that were mounted on the Ballbridge chimney were retrieved by the owners when the Swastika site was redeveloped

Data_Quest

Fuinseog wrote: »

the swatika laundry was set up in 1912, long before the nazis. there is a lot of ignorance surrounding the swatika. it is still a very potent religious symbol for many cultures. if you still want to see swastikas in dublin take a look at the glass door on the national museum in kildare street. i believe they could be grecian.

I was in the Louvre recently and was surprised to see swastikas on ancient Greek pottery. The same pottery also had spirals similar to what you can see in Newgrange. I would be interested if anyone can post a link on supposed meanings for these ancient symbols.

TheScribbler

The swastika was widely used as a symbol to represent good fortune through the Indian sub continent adn the Gulf. Indeed Indian elephants frequently carried a swastika talisman on their foreheads. One suggestion is that they were introduced into European culture through Alexander and the Greeks who conquered Persia, Afghanistan and much of eastern Pakistan and India.

Fuinseog

I believe it is also connected with the sun.
you also have the nordic swastika and even a Celtic one. i think its on a stone in Kerry. definitely to be found on mainland celtic monuments. there is an indian martial arts that uses it as a symbol.
it is a forbidden symbol in germany and austria.
all the swastikas take slightly different forms. unfortunately there is so much ignorance surrounding it that the average citizen sees them all as being racist symbols.

Data_Quest

TheScribbler wrote: »

The swastika was widely used as a symbol to represent good fortune through the Indian sub continent adn the Gulf. Indeed Indian elephants frequently carried a swastika talisman on their foreheads. One suggestion is that they were introduced into European culture through Alexander and the Greeks who conquered Persia, Afghanistan and much of eastern Pakistan and India.

The pottery I saw was much older than Alexander's time (from 1,000 BC back to 2,000 BC) so I am wondering where did the symbol originate? Was there some common culture that spread to India and Greece at roughly the same time?

TheScribbler

Data Quest

There is a very good piece on the history of the Swastika on Wikipedia. I have provided a link as follows: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

FiSe

And as it says on the wiki page, Finnish Air Force is using swastika til today on their official flags. Which were designed well before the Nazis took this symbol.

Doozie

The symbol can also be seen from the Viking Oseberg Ship burial excavation dating to the ninth century. Its appearance shows the spread of influence of indo-european cultures.

TheScribbler

Hi

My core interest in this topic has been to see if anyone has a photograph, old press advertisement or other images associated with either or both of the former Imco Dry Cleaners or Swastika Laundry? Anyone?

1968

TheScribbler wrote: »

Hi

My core interest in this topic has been to see if anyone has a photograph, old press advertisement or other images associated with either or both of the former Imco Dry Cleaners or Swastika Laundry? Anyone?

Here's another photo not yet posted of the Swastika Laundry vans - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Swastikalaundry.jpg

For press advertisements, I'd suggest searching the Irish Times online archive.

TheScribbler

1968, I have seen that image a few times along with two of electric vans, one real and one faked up for a movie some time back. I was curious to know if anyone has a pic of the old laundry (complete with chimney).