An interview with a neighbor: Meena Desai

The Midtown Cleaners & Laundry has been a central location for Poncey-Highland for almost two decades. Spend five minutes inside the doors and you'll see a remarkable cross-section of the neighborhood: tattooed bartenders waiting for their shirts to dry, clean-cut professionals picking up dry cleaning, and whole families folding sheets and towels. For Meena and Dinesh Desai, the husband-and-wife owners of the business, this is the Poncey-Highland they've grown to know and love. Here, Meena explains why she loves what she does.

We've been here 19 years. My clientele is great. We have the younger, the students, the Little Five Points groups. Over the years, I got to know the families, to see their kids grow up. The neighborhood is very friendly. I spend most of my day here, so you got to make friends. They come for five minutes, but you know them. You do. I hope the neighborhood doesn't grow too quick, so people don't get frustrated with the traffic and the problems that come with it, but it's good to see the area grow up.