Original Kitchen in Basement?
Looks like we have some kind of brick oven in our basement. Were most kitchens in 1880 in the basement? If the kitchen is still there and always was, can DOB still require I move it out of basement?
Looks like we have some kind of brick oven in our basement. Were most kitchens in 1880 in the basement? If the kitchen is still there and always was, can DOB still require I move it out of basement?
yes, kitchens were often in the back of the basement/garden level with an informal multipurpose room in front that was used for informal meals, with fancy meals happening on the parlor floor above. In that era people often still rearranged rooms for different purposes as needed, for example opening up a card table to play, or pulling a chair over to the window to read or sew in daylight.
The question is whether the OP is referring to a true basement (more than half above grade), or a cellar (more than half below grade. In a typical high-stoop row house (like mine) the kitchen is located in the rear of the basement (aka garden level), which is habitable space, that is located over a cellar, which is not habitable. There is often confusion over the two terms which are often, incorrectly, used interchangeably.
Many of the Brownstones I have worked in were origianlly built with the kitchen in the basement (or in what many people now refer to as the “garden level”). The dining room would have still been on the first or parlor level floor, behind the parlor. Some of the homes had dumb waiters to help move food between floors.
Steve