Basement Floor Mystery
There are many mysteries in my basement that I have not been able to figure out, perhaps someone may have an answer here.
The building is in L shape. The vertical leg is about 100′ with about a third being three stories and the rest one. The horizontal leg is one story, sunken and extends behind the two neighboring plots. It is located in Crown Heights and was built by an interesting real estate developer named Ralph Leininger.
The first being the “dirt” room. A section of the basement is ‘sunken’. In this area the underpinning or foundations for the walls are exposed. There are three rooms in this section. The third is filled with dirt to the top of the foundation. I dug down in this room and there is no slab under it. One has to step up into the room which has a ceiling height of about 5′. It’s roughly 10’x30′ The ceiling is finished with lath and rough plaster. Could never figure out what this room was for. Food storage, mushrooms, or corner cut construction are things suggested.
In another section of the basement, I recently discovered after being here 50 yea rs that the floor was raised between 6 and 7 inches. The bottom step of the stairs had been covered over. The low heigh of laundry sinks is now explained as they are set on the original slab. It has been suggested that the raising might be related to a water table issue. If that were the case then the coal pit would have water issues, which it doesn’t.
wzszsekcntvhli
in General Discussion 1 year and 4 months ago
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cate | 1 year and 4 months ago
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Buildings need cellars. Do you know the purpose of the horizontal sunken one story that is above the cellar?
cate | 1 year and 4 months ago
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Bootlegging? Could the room with a plaster ceiling be a root cellar? A thicker floor can be poured to better keep out moisture, though in modern times it will include a vapor barrier.
justinromeu26 | 1 year and 4 months ago
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}
I heard a rumor about a basement described like this in Crown Heights. someone had buried a hoard of gold in it in the 1930’s when the government outlawed its possession. The guy died and the family never recovered it.
be careful digging around old stone footings.