A N.Y. Times article caught my attention because I grew up in a house with a similarly unfinished basement in Queens, a musty room stuffed with the detritus of our lives, objects with too much potential value to simply throw out, but too little value to be placed in the upper two floors of the house where we lived.
The headline of the story, linked above:
In Praise of Unfinished Basements
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If I ever had a photo of our Queens basement, I've lost it over the years. But it it is easy to describe: A concrete floored room about 12 feet wide and 30 feet long, 90% below ground, with the depressed area where coal had been stored in the 30's and 40's, before the original homeowner updated to gas.
On one end there was a crawl space underneath the front porch. Yea, it was a spooky area with no electric light...just some external outdoor light from a small window. I am sure I was the only one in our family who ever crawled into it. Scary, yes, but I found it fascinating.
One the other end there was a washer and dryer, along with deep sink. Oh and the gas furnace that replaced the original coal burning heater.
At one point we had a ping-pong table in the basement, later a pool table. I also remember my Dad "dancing" with one of our dogs in the basement.
No comments:
Post a Comment