I used to live in a walkup apartment building on the first floor. In the kitchen, under the window there, you could see a small box with a door. This was a place to store your potatoes, etc.

In the apartment hallway you would see a door on a wall, behind this door was the dumbwaiter, which was used by the super to collect your garbage, provided it was being used by the super, in the basement the super would ring a bell, if you had garbage to be collected you would rind back, he would then hoist the box in the shaft for the dumbwaiter to your floor, you would place your garbage in, close the door and ring back to the super. Sometimes, when next door neighbors using the same shaft, could knock on their neighbors dumbwaiter door, to easily borrow stuff from each other without having to leave their apartment,

Also in the hallway, were the electric and gas meters, which would get read by a meter reader so they could bill you for your usage, They would come to each apartment on a regular basis.

Reference ID: BX92030

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