How New York became a metropolis of stoops | Hacker News Reader

How New York became a metropolis of stoops

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72 pointsanimalcule23 comments

Stoops can have a dramatic impact on the culture of a given block.

When you have stoops, people sit on them.

This means more conversation outside in public, creating community.

When I was young, it was normal for a group of kids to sit on any stoop if the front gate was open. (This has mostly gone away)

Older people might spend hours sitting on their stoop, and basically end up being a neighborhood watch.

Neighbors get to know each other, and are more likely to quickly identify someone being violent and call the police.

Overall, I would always choose a block with stoops over one without, everything else being more or less equal.

The downside is people will smoke on them and leave their butts around.

1. Like every other surface, or the sidewalk in front of your house, you do have to maintain it. If it's not cigarette butts it's bird shit or leaves or slush or what have you. (Sidewalk cleaning is the responsibility of the property owner in NYC, or at least snow shoveling is.)

2. How much of a problem is this in 2020 NYC? The Bloomberg-era anti-smoking campaigns really did a number of smoking rates, and the very high cigarette tax also did a number. Smoking rates have declined to about 5% of girls, 7% of boys, 9% of women and 17% of men, from a 1997 baseline of 20-23% for all of these groups. [1]

[1] - https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/epi/databrief1...

One downside of stoops is the existence of the stairs, which presents an additional burden if

- you are carrying anything big, bulky, or heavy, like groceries or a stroller

- it is snowing or raining or freezing, in which case the stairs become slick and quite dangerous

- you have issues with mobility; you may be old, pregnant, or have lost mobility due to either something temporary (requiring the use of crutches) or permanent

And some people deal with multiples of these issues. These are issues in most housing forms (most houses have some kind of steps) but NYC-style stoops can run much larger than a typical modern set of steps, where there are probably only two or three from the path to the door.

Alternative: Traditional tamil houses are supposed to have a fairly large platform (size of a twin bed) which is explicitly designed for not just the owners, but any passers by to sit and take a break.

The tradition as it's told is that anyone can also choose to spend the night there, and it's the house owners obligation now to provide them with a hearty meal and whatever else help they may need.

I like that idea, but doubt it can actually work in any large town or in these times.

We have this in many neighbourhoods of Montréal, but with exterior staircases.

A collage of examples: https://montrealstreetfrench.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/esc...

In the summer it's incredibly common to find people hanging out on the 2nd level landings, having morning coffee at a little table, playing music, or just soaking up some sun.

Because there's almost no shared interior space (since the staircases are all on the outside), it's more space-efficient, and also gives people a bit more privacy since everyone has their own entrance from the outside.

Funny story. In current Dutch, the word 'stoep' means side walk, and has nothing to do with these kind of stairs.

I'm the Dutch golden age, in which the inner city of Amsterdam got it's channels, they did add these stoops to the big mansions for exactly the same reason.

The Van Dale dictionary seems to list another meaning of ‘stoep’ as steps to a house. Have I understood correctly?

https://www.vandale.nl/gratis-woordenboek/nederlands/beteken...

Interesting. While “op de stoep staan” is a very common expression nobody knows it’s actually about those stairs in front of a house.

‘Geen poep op de stoep’ applies to both meanings as well.

Also allowing for stoop sales, "which is a Garage sale, if you live in Brooklyn" [1] :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFOPwL32UvI

Interesting. Here in the Netherlans only old houses in cities still have these things. What we call "stoep" nowadays is simply the pavement/sidewalk.

Without a stoop, you wouldn't have stoop ball. And without that, what would kids do on summer afternoons?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoop_ball

Came here to make a stoop ball comment. Played it (and wiffle ball) throughout my childhood at my grandma’s house in Brooklyn.

Tried playing again about 10 years ago (in my twenties). The shoulder pain didn’t go away for a week. Can’t wait to blow out my shoulder again teaching it to my kids.

We also played stick ball in the middle of the street.

That was a very different time.

Yep - stoop ball and stick ball and the smell of a brand new spaldeeeen make up a lot of my childhood memories.

What do you do to make stoops more accessible to people who can't climb stairs easily?

You can't really... And that's the correct answer to the rhetorical question at the end, why they wouldn't be back in style. In most first world countries, making the front entrance of a new building inaccessible to people with wheelchairs is impossible due to building codes.

Pretty common in London as well

I wonder whether they came to London from The Netherlands as well. The Wikipedia page for stoop only mentions North America. Is there a different name used in England?

in the UK it would be’ the front steps’ or ‘front paving’

stoop has a totally different meaning

Stoop kid.

It was the first thing I thought of too: https://heyarnold.fandom.com/wiki/Stoop_Kid_(character)

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