Question: In the movies and on TV you often see tenement apartments with windows in between the rooms. NYPD Blue comes to mind. Why is this? Some kind of remodel? From The Tenement Museum, lower east side, Manhattan, New York City
I've never seen that before Nancy...but having good knowledge of tenements small and large..I would imagine the dividing walls were made to make 2 rooms out of one, but yet to keep some light in the room with the window...
Yes @Nancy Hart it's very common here in Russia because apartments were divided during Soviet times, it's called "borrowed light" by architects, In fact some homes are built this way. Lisa has two walls with windows all along the upper level.
I wonder how often the lid on the laundry/bathtub sink crashed down on someone's head or fingers? My life was pretty basic growing up but I'm thankful that I didn't grow up in some of these situations! I suppose we all just do what we need to do without giving it much thought, especially when everyone we know is in the same boat.
I always though Tim Allen should have taken his tool company from Tool Time (Home Improvement)and marketed it as a home-party marketing scheme. I can envision a bunch of guys sitting around, drinking beer, and buying a bunch of tools they probably didn't need.
I used to stay in a friend's apartment in New York and it was tenement-style from the early 20th century. The kitchen counter was the cover for the bath tub and the "loo" was in a small closet off the kitchen with the tank suspended from the ceiling. I found it quaint, but cramped, and every apartment had a window onto a totally enclosed courtyard that I always imagined to be a garbage dump in the early days.
My biscuit cutter was lost for about 10 yrs and I opened a box and there it was them looking through some of mother's things there was the original center part for making doughnuts, now all complete after all these years. My pan was her mothers now over 100 yrs old, it has pliers marks from taking it from the old ovens still on it. Very heavy metal compared to the China crap we see now.
Speaking of kitchen utensils, does anyone know what this is used for? All it says is "antique kitchen tool." Looks like one claw is missing.
After the war and so many homes had been destroyed there was a desperate need for housing , so the govt created a pre-fabricated home culture all over the country. The houses were single storey homes and were meant to be temporary for a max of 10 years.. however they lasted in some instances for well over 50 years and some still stand today... They were kitted out with built in fridges and were actually an improvement for many people who'd lived in very poor, often slum housing ..mainly old tenement buildings, pre war , and most people loved their ''little pre-fab'' and still speak of them today with great affection . We moved into one in the early 60's when i was just knee high . and my mother was delighted with her ''detached home'' and garden. We only stayed for about 4 years before we moved .. but I remember the inside of it very well. Ours was quite a lot larger than the regular ones, which had extremely tiny rooms ..I have no idea why but it was... but we have an open air museum here, where they have an original prefab, of the type that were small, and they've kitted it out inside exactly the way it would have been in the 40's and 50's... As an adult looking walking around inside I was stunned at just how small the room were in the original ones... as ours was so much larger ( I do have a pic or 2 from our own one somewhere, when I find them I'll post them) but for now this is the one at the open air museum. This is the tiny double bedroom...the bed no longer than about 5 feet 6..and about 4 feet wide, and in that tiny room, no closets just a dressing table and often the cot for the baby... I have more somewhere, when I find them I'll post them...
Incidentally with regard to the prefab pics, the reason everything is laid out..on the bed.. and washboard and boiler out in the kitchen is so the visitor can see without touching anything