The first house that my parents bought when they moved to America was a raised ranch; unusually for the area, it had no basement. My brother, then aged 3, was disappointed; all of his new little friends had basements and he wanted one too.
Soon, the basement was all that he talked about. Could he build a basement, he asked my mother. Could he? COULD HE?
on the day of my sister's high school graduation, my parents' basement flooded. as in, a foot of water in an hour, flooded. the timing was both bad and good that we had enough graduation party guests to get it sorted out. we lost lots of old papers, pictures, and some furniture and clothes.
5 years later, i was living with my parents so i could help them through a time they needed help. i left for 3 days during which time the basement flooded again. i lost my 2 baby books and some other stuff.
when i moved to dc, the first question i asked about the house i wanted to rent was 'has there ever been a problem with water in the basement?'
his answer was no and it flooded 3 weeks ago. lost nothing but and remaining shreds of faith in the structural integrity of basements.
Growing up in an aparment, you knew you were different from the rest of the US. I went to the movies and in the movies eveyone lives in house with a yard, an attic, a basement, and stairs.
However, I did have something pretty cool that you couldn't find in the American House. The basement in my building was mainly just the place you did your laundry and ran into the old woman who talked to herself and smelled of onions.
Right next to the laundry room, was the mechanical room for the two elevators. The doorknob had been taken off the door where the maintenance guys had fed a chain to lock off the room.
Sometimes, though, they'd leave the light on in the room after they had locked it and you could put your eye up to the hole in the door and watch the entire mechanics of the elevator system clicking and whirring away, lowering and raising the elevator cars.
Pretty good entertainment for a little boy who could only go outside if his mom took him to the park.
Here is my story about the basement: There is a big water cistern in Istanbul called Binbirdirek Cictern (meaning 1001 columns – there are far fewer columns in reality). It dates back to 6th century and has been dry since the 1960’s. The interesting thing is that over time people forgot it was there. There are accounts of people going to their BASEMENT and finding fresh clean water. People gave it no thought and soon the cistern became a place for people to dump their trash and even their dead. In this century it took seven years and 1000’s of garbage trucks full of trash to remove all the junk from the cistern. They charge something near 10 lira a piece for you to go see it, and it might be worth it too just for the cool damp air that it breathes.
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5 comments:
The basement is the only place that smells like home and death at the same time.
The first house that my parents bought when they moved to America was a raised ranch; unusually for the area, it had no basement. My brother, then aged 3, was disappointed; all of his new little friends had basements and he wanted one too.
Soon, the basement was all that he talked about. Could he build a basement, he asked my mother. Could he? COULD HE?
Finally, she handed him a trowel.
'Right,' she said. 'Dig.'
He never asked for a basement again.
on the day of my sister's high school graduation, my parents' basement flooded. as in, a foot of water in an hour, flooded. the timing was both bad and good that we had enough graduation party guests to get it sorted out. we lost lots of old papers, pictures, and some furniture and clothes.
5 years later, i was living with my parents so i could help them through a time they needed help. i left for 3 days during which time the basement flooded again. i lost my 2 baby books and some other stuff.
when i moved to dc, the first question i asked about the house i wanted to rent was 'has there ever been a problem with water in the basement?'
his answer was no and it flooded 3 weeks ago. lost nothing but and remaining shreds of faith in the structural integrity of basements.
Growing up in an aparment, you knew you were different from the rest of the US. I went to the movies and in the movies eveyone lives in house with a yard, an attic, a basement, and stairs.
However, I did have something pretty cool that you couldn't find in the American House. The basement in my building was mainly just the place you did your laundry and ran into the old woman who talked to herself and smelled of onions.
Right next to the laundry room, was the mechanical room for the two elevators. The doorknob had been taken off the door where the maintenance guys had fed a chain to lock off the room.
Sometimes, though, they'd leave the light on in the room after they had locked it and you could put your eye up to the hole in the door and watch the entire mechanics of the elevator system clicking and whirring away, lowering and raising the elevator cars.
Pretty good entertainment for a little boy who could only go outside if his mom took him to the park.
Here is my story about the basement:
There is a big water cistern in Istanbul called Binbirdirek Cictern (meaning 1001 columns – there are far fewer columns in reality). It dates back to 6th century and has been dry since the 1960’s. The interesting thing is that over time people forgot it was there. There are accounts of people going to their BASEMENT and finding fresh clean water. People gave it no thought and soon the cistern became a place for people to dump their trash and even their dead. In this century it took seven years and 1000’s of garbage trucks full of trash to remove all the junk from the cistern. They charge something near 10 lira a piece for you to go see it, and it might be worth it too just for the cool damp air that it breathes.
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