Walkabout: Meals in the Attic
(Photo: kitchenclarity.com. Large 19th century kitchen) In the course of looking for topics for this column, I come across some interesting little snippets that give us an insight into what life was like in Brooklyn and New York City, a hundred years ago. I recently came across this short article called Architecture and Servants, in…
(Photo: kitchenclarity.com. Large 19th century kitchen)
In the course of looking for topics for this column, I come across some interesting little snippets that give us an insight into what life was like in Brooklyn and New York City, a hundred years ago. I recently came across this short article called Architecture and Servants, in the Real Estate Record and Guide, January 28, 1893:
The importance of the servant girl as a factor in our modern life is illustrated in no better way than in the effect she has on the planning and construction of the modern dwelling house. It is not enough that the quarters allotted to the domestics have been immeasurably improved in the last ten years; nobody begrudges them that, but their demands extend to the other parts of the house and must be complied with or they will leave, and this last threat has been enough to assure the fulfillment of their demands. Possibly the most startling of the dominance of the servant girl is to be found in the entire abandonment of the idea introduced a few years ago of having the kitchen on the top floor.
This idea had many advantages and it found a quick acceptance. The culinary odors which penetrated even the houses of the best construction under the old plan of a basement kitchen were entirely done away with, and the kitchen was completely cut off from the rest of the house. Doubtless the roof kitchen would have been very generously adapted had not the cook objected. It necessitated climbing too many stairs, she said, notwithstanding the fact that a dumb-waiter always communicated with the kitchen, and it cut her off from company. She demanded the establishment of the old basement kitchen, and the owners and builders of private houses quickly succumbed. Architects say they are not allowed to plan dwellings with kitchens on the top floors anymore.
OK, wha?? This is the first I have ever heard of this trend, to have kitchens on the top floors. In all my travels, and in all the upper class and upper middle class houses I’ve been in, I have yet to see an original kitchen on the top floor of a single family house. We are all familiar with the brownstone and row house kitchens. The original kitchen is always found on the basement, ground floor level, in the back of the building. If the house is large enough, there may be a butler’s pantry, or built-ins built into a middle room or passageway, and a dumb-waiter to bring food up to the formal dining room on the parlor floor level. The front room downstairs was traditionally a less formal breakfast/dining room. Free standing houses, especially large mansions, also usually had the kitchen in the basement, with dumb-waiters to carry food to the parlor level. Depending on the climate, there could also be a summer kitchen, totally separate from the house, housed in a small building attached to the house. Guests never saw the kitchen, or anyone in it, except serving staff.
I would imagine if any of Brooklyn’s homes had kitchens on the top floor, they would have been moved back downstairs, long ago, which is why we haven’t seen any. I’m curious to find out if any of the readers in the Brownstowner community have ever seen an original top floor kitchen, or if you have one now, or if you have them in your original blueprints.
About time the servants of yesteryear won one.
(Photo:ourwardfamily.com. 19th century maids)
Rob, you lived in an apt that was formerly a dumbwaiter?
Ownhs, that could have been an original two family. Look for an original bathroom on the bedroom/parlor floor, and identical mantles in each apartment’s parlor.
Got one sort of. We bought a prospect heights brownstone that had been owned by one family before. The house had barely been updated in any way. The old bachelor who’d died and left it in his estate had kept things very much as they were when he was born in the house. It had an original kitchen on the ground floor with the huge original cast iron stove.
But it also had a room at the top rear of the house that was clearly used as a kitchen and laundry room a long time ago. It had a huge old soapstone double laundry sink that would have allowed the wash to be run out the window on a line to dry I guess. It also had one of the oldest gas stoves I have ever seen. I assumed that maybe they had given a servant their own quarters with a kitchen at some point or maybe they had a border in at a very early date. Your guess is as good as mine.
my house has a kitchen on 3d floor, but its not original by any means. I was told it was originally a servant’s kitchen so grandfathered into zoning.
Many ditmas park houses have a similar room, but it’s usually converted to another use such as laundry, bathroom, etc..
im cringing thinking how much roach and rat feces were all over those dumbwaiters and dumbwaiter shafts! ew, pretty cool article tho MM!!! ive always always been fascinated with dumb waiters. lived in an apartment in north jersey once that what we believed to have been one at one time.
*rob*
What I actually find interesting about the kitchen pictured above is how aesthetically speaking – many “renovated” kitchens today actually look like this – just with cleaner subway tile and stainless steel appliances and throw in a Carrara marble countertop
The help should never be seen above the parlour level except to empty the chamber pots.
Oh wait, I see my original comment did not post.
I said I’ve never seen a one-family house with the original kitchen on the top floor.
We have an original kitchen on the third floor, but it’s an original two-family house. There is another kitchen from the same era in the usual place in the rear of the first floor.
I have a friend with a circa 1860 house in Jersey City. That house’s origianl kitchen was on the top floor. And then another was added on the basement floor at a later date, after the house was inherited and lived in by 4 sisters. It turns out he 4th sister was feuding with the other three and made her own apartment on the ground floor.
In Richmond in the Fan, there are multiple grand old 4- story apartment buildings. I think they were built in the teens and twenties. These buildings typically had two apartments per floor, with front and back porches. The alley-facing back porches were equipped with these big hook, pail and pulley devices for deliveries to kitchens at the rear of the building. there were also stairs leading down from the rear porch to the alley. When I lived in one of those apartments we used the pulley for garbage.