Bathtubs in Kitchens? I Think Not!
Bushwick Avenue brownstones. Photo from Forgotten NY
The cool folks at Reclaimed Home, a site for people renovating their houses on the cheap, gave a shout out to Bushwick today…such as it was. News flash: Bushwick is not being newly populated only by hipsters. In fact, it’s probably being evenly newly populated by whites and (non-white) Mexicans. But I already digress. Not all white people are hipsters, for christ’s sake. Gah.
It’s cool that they mentioned that yes, Bushwick has brownstones, rare as they may be. And they linked to us, so their points double.
But bathtubs in kitchens? That was never something that went on in these parts, that was for the overcrowded tenements of the Lower East Side (in which my great-grandparents slummed it after fleeing the Bolsheviks). Am I wrong?
October 19th, 2007 at 10:09 am
LOL. Ok, you got me, Jeremy. I was just having flashbacks to my hipster days on the LES/E Village (Hey, my Russian grandparents settled there!). No bathtubs in the kitchens. Oh, what you kids today are missing out on.
Anyway, I did mention that there are still folks other than white hipsters. It’s embedded in my nasty, tongue in cheek hipster comments.
Friends?
October 19th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Hey, I said I like you guys. I pick on everybody.
October 19th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
I don’t know, my landlord said that in my building (on Jefferson btwn Central and Evergreen), the bathtubs used to be in the kitchen (he’s owned the building for 20 or so years).
October 19th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Jefferson Ave. or Street - big difference.
October 20th, 2007 at 7:10 am
Before settling on my current apartment I went and looked (and tried to rent a railroad apartment on Moore. The kitchen and bathroom were in the same room, at some point someone walled in the tub and toilet to kind of separate them from the main kitchen area, but the kitchen sink and the bathroom sink were one and the same.
October 20th, 2007 at 8:22 am
Twenty years or more ago it was not uncommon, (even in Yorkville, upper East side) to have in tenement buildings the bath top in the kitchen. I’ve seen it.
October 20th, 2007 at 8:28 am
sorry spell error “bathtub”!!
October 21st, 2007 at 11:46 pm
if your building was built before the new tenement law of 1901 then your home had outhouses in the backyard. After 1901 it was mandetory for builders to install indoor plumbing and for landlords to supply indoor plumbing. The cheapest alternative for homes already built before 1901 was to install everything in the same room. i believe it was in 1924 when the city once again reformed the law and made even stricter changes to end that practice.
October 23rd, 2007 at 5:13 pm
I believe they discribe that in A tree grows in Brooklyn.
October 24th, 2007 at 2:08 am
Bathtubs in kicthens? You bet! Ok, you know Dekalb ave. between Evergreen and Central? Notice the north end of the block has a row of relatively new houses. Well, back in 1973 I lived on the very corner of Dekalb and Evergreen. A fire broke out further down the block and consumed our building and half of the other buildings on the block. Well, most of those tenements including mine, were built before Harry Houdini plied his trade. And we all had either bathtubs or showers right smack in the kitchen! And the tiny toilets were something straight out of turn of the century lower east side. I remember visiting a friend on the block and walking into the kitchen while his mom cooked dinner and his dad bathed in the tub next to the sink. Classic!
October 24th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Wow, I stand corrected! I had always assumed that the phenomenon was because of space constraints in the city. And also since nobody I know has an apartment like that (and I don’t see them in the apt roundups), I though that we didn’t have them.