Stoop removal...why?
hi, i am curious as to why some brownstones don’t have stoops (and it seems quite obvious that they had them before since all the other ones next to them still have them). What are the advantages? I am not planning on removing mine, but it’s a question that has been bugging me for some…
hi, i am curious as to why some brownstones don’t have stoops (and it seems quite obvious that they had them before since all the other ones next to them still have them). What are the advantages? I am not planning on removing mine, but it’s a question that has been bugging me for some time.
thanks,
e
I like stoops for sitting on … but I hate dark garden level apartments. One advantage to losing the stoop is that the garden floor gets more light in the front.
Why not?
A lot of the stoop removals I have seen are on buildings that look like they were renovated in the 20’s or 30’s – sort of a moderne look, so I assume it was done then.
If you look at townhouses in Manhattan, particularly on the UES, you will see this is the norm.
Like Bob said, by the turn of the 20th century, stoops were considered very Victorian and therefore old-fashioned. By removing the stoop and adding some Beaux-arts details, the house became fashionable again–at least in Manhattan.
I don’t know how much of a factor this was in Brooklyn, since houses started to be broken up into multifamily units in the 20s and 30s. Removing the stoop probably had less to do with being stylish and more to to with creating a more functional apartment building.
One other reason was security. At a time when the city was a more dangerous place, the stoop was a place where muggers could hide. Also having only one entrance to the building made it easier to secure. Notice also the security fencing placed around man brownestones.
Years ago, when many stoops were removed, they, along with other features such as cornices, were seen as ugly and old fashioned. Their removal made brownstones seem more “modern” like the desirable suburban tract houses. Why you could even cover that ugly brownstone with beautiful permastone–if that was too costly, there wa aluminum siding.
On the inside, you could lower those old-fashioned high ceilings with modern acoustic panels. Removing that ugly woodwork was expensive, but you could paint it to make it look nicer.
People like me, who claimed to LIKE that old stuff were obviously crazy!
Another reason it’s removed is because the owner wants extra room on the parlor floor. If you take out the stoop entrance, part of the inside hall can be added to the front parlor giving more functional space. Often this is done in buildings that became SRO’s for more rental income. Less beauty but more money in a landlords pocket.
Before brownstones were appreciated as “historical”, people were annoyed by all the steps.
if you remove the stoop. the garden floor becomes the only entering point to the place from the front. it frees up sq ft on the first floor.