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by
Jean VanBooven-Shook |
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April
26, 2006 |
Mysteries
of the Driveways Revealed… I think…
This
series will discuss the history of our homes in Northeast in
order to help readers develop an appreciation for their features.
We’ll ponder the scenes swirling in and around these homes
over the past century. We’ll talk about preservation,
and why we should care about it. We’ll later focus each
article on particular home features, so that homeowners can
critically consider how to keep the homes’ and Northeast’s
historic character.
It’s
bothered me for over 10 years. I’ve asked around, but
no one seems to know the answer. Why are the driveways on the
wrong side of the houses? It’s always struck me that when
looking at a row of shirtwaists, no matter how the house is
oriented, the driveways are all on the wrong side – or,
at least, what I’ve determined to be the wrong side. Do
other people find this question as perturbing as I do?
A few thousand trips across my front yard from the driveway
schlepping Aldi’s boxes, Price Chopper bags, or babies
in pumpkin seats has only intensified my interest in discovering
the truth. For some reason, the driveway was put on the side
furthest from the front door, which of course, is also furthest
from the side door. I dream of a driveway on the proper side,
so that I could park beside the side door and traverse a mere
10 feet or so to have my groceries inside the kitchen. Instead,
I haul them across the front yard, up five steps, across the
porch, through the living room, and then to the kitchen.
Maybe I’m overly sensitive, and my modern tendency to
laziness is showing through. In the preview for the upcoming
“Over the Hedge” movie, animals watch suburbia creep
in. They observe an SUV and note, “Humans like to drive
because they are slowly losing their ability to walk.”
We know the early 20th century people walked more than we early
21st century people. You’ve read of men with their lunch
pails, trudging through Northeast every morning to converge
at the trails along the cliff, descending to work in the rail
yards below. They must not have minded stairs a lot either.
A number of homes in Northeast require a stair climb nearly
as high as the house itself, just to reach the front door. Maybe
long-gone homeowners didn’t think about a few extra steps
across the front yard.
When Northeast was built, many people didn’t own cars,
as the auto was just coming to Kansas City, a fact that explains
why so many homes here lack driveways at all. Many were added
after the homes were built. Someone suggested to me that land
records over the years would undoubtedly show transfers of a
few feet of land, as property owners later sought to make room
for a driveway. Still, this doesn’t explain why they seem
to consistently end up on the “wrong” side. Look
carefully at a row of homes, particularly shirtwaists, and you’ll
see what I mean. True – sometimes, you’ve really
got to scrutinize a property to determine which particular driveway
belongs to which house.
While digging along my driveway, I found a piece of 1909 blue
and white china plate. The house was built in 1908. How, and
when, had a piece of 1909 china gotten into the dirt by the
foundation? It was an interesting scenario to contemplate. Alongside
the pottery, I came across several handfuls of black rock, another
archaeological find: coal from the old furnace. I didn’t
have a coal door as many homes still do, but perhaps the fuel
had been shoveled in through a basement window.
Handy not just for a place to park, a driveway would make coal
delivery to the basement much easier. For me to have found coal
along the driveway, then, isn’t headline news. This fact
doesn’t explain why the driveways are “backwards.”
If one was putting in a driveway, why not put it on the side
of the front and side door, and just deliver coal to that side
of the basement?
Several weeks after my find, it hit me, the link between the
lumps of coal and the backwards driveways. The convenience of
the side door for delivery was probably precisely the factor
that kept people from delivering coal to that side of the basement.
When facing the house, side doors are always on the same side
as the front door, which also means that the basement stairs
are on the same side as the front door. To deliver coal to the
front corner of the house on the same side as the side door
would mean dealing with the inconvenience of a coal bin, or
big pile of coal, immediately in front of the stairs, crowding
its path. The coal would then have to be carried across the
pathway from the stairs to the furnace. The other side of the
basement might be more convenient. It has one long, uninterrupted
wall, with more room for the bin and wayward lumps.
Problem solved. The position of the driveway has nothing to
do with the doors, but everything to do with the basement stairs
and coal delivery. Tell me, please, if I’m wrong. I’d
like to hear your theories. But for now, after a decade, I am
no longer bothered by this mystery, because the issue is settled.
In my mind, at least.
Jean
Van Booven-Shook has lived in the Northeast for 10 years with
her husband and three children. During that time her projects
have included conducting an architectural survey for the St.
John Corridor Plan, faux painting, hardwood floor restoration
and repair, stained glass work, stonework, and research on the
history of Northeast and its housing styles.
