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October 16, 2008
What were the round cutouts in brownstone stairwells originally for?
Can anyone answer this question? i'm talking about the rounded cutouts found at the top of brownstone stairwells. Many people use them as a display spot for flowers.
Thanks!
Comments
Coffins. I'm for real.
Posted by: Adam Dahill at October 17, 2008 1:35 AM
Yeah, coffin niche they called them. Gave clearance to make the turn at the top of the stairs. Unless that's an urban legend.
Posted by: denton at October 17, 2008 5:50 AM
"coffin corners." Definitely. When these houses were built, most people died in their homes, not in hospitals.
Posted by: Smokychimp at October 17, 2008 8:00 AM
I think the "coffin corner' thing is an urban myth and that they were intended to display sculpture or other decorative objects.
Posted by: Bob Marvin at October 17, 2008 8:37 AM
They were called coffin corners, but they served decorative purposes as well as provided a cutout for large furniture, or coffins, to make the tight corners on the stairways. The act of rounding out the corner wall, which was purely decorative, left the need for the niche that provided full clearance. Having once lived on the top floor of a coffin cornered brownstone, we would remove our vase from the niche and actually use it to get furniture up the stairs.
Posted by: Park Place at October 17, 2008 8:54 AM
I've heard the coffin corner thing, but it makes no sense. Why wouldn't you just carry the body downstairs and then put it in the coffin? Why would you take that big heavy box of wood upstairs?
Posted by: slopefarm at October 17, 2008 9:50 AM
Coffin corners, regardless of whether you wanted to move a coffin down the stairs, were designed to assist with getting large pieces of furniture around the tight staricase corner. The decorative flourishes were to make it nice looking.
Posted by: 1842 at October 17, 2008 10:58 AM
slopefarm--I think most people had viewings etc in their homes in those days so the body would have probably laid in the coffin for viewing before being carried downstairs.
Posted by: wasder at October 17, 2008 3:35 PM
I too heard it was a myth. Here's more info...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffin_corner_(architecture)
Posted by: cmontgom at October 17, 2008 4:31 PM
It's a myth. Viewings were held on the parlor floor, so there was no need for a coffin to be moved up and down the upper levels. Though they were indeed called coffin corners, they were for moving large pieces of furniture and used mostly as a display area.
I studied elegiac literature and art and developing attitudes toward death in the US from the 18th through the 20th centuries as part of my PhD work in English Lit and this is one of those things I picked up along the way--long before I ever stepped foot in a brownstone.
-T (HomeSweetStuy's husband)
Posted by: HomeSweetstuy at October 17, 2008 5:09 PM
The reason for the coffin turner niche is that as you turn the corner going up the stairs, the steps get quite a bit steeper, meaning that you have to lift the uphill part of the furniture higher to clear the banister. Without the niche, very wide You can use the coffin turner to rotate furniture over the banister -- it allows you to get much bigger pieces of furniture through. It also gives you a shelf to rest the furniture on so you can crawl under it and lift it from the other end when you are moving stuff around.
Personally, I've always thought that it would be much easier if brownstones had a jib boom coming off the cornice, and a removable window on each floor, so you could use a block and tackle to raise things right off the truck onto the correct floor. It would make moving in and out much easier.
Posted by: thwackamole at October 19, 2008 7:46 PM
Not sure about this being a myth. My father-in-law told me a story from the depression when he got his first job. It was to deliver flowers. Now since people had no money they would die at home and be laid out whereever they could be. He told me the kitchen table with some boards on top was not unusual. Also by then people didn't own the whole house and lived on an upper floor. He had to carry flowers up to a fifth floor kitchen and bend over to put them down next to the body. Now he was 14 years old and scared witless by the whole thing. To keep the corpse's arms together they would fold the hands together and tie the thumb to one another. Well just as he bent over to put the last flowers next to the kitchen table the knot came undone and the arm fell off the table and smacked him on the butt!!! He got so scared he ran down 4 flights of stairs screaming and out the front door!
Posted by: spinecore at November 29, 2008 4:48 PM
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