Dumbwaiter

allright no one has commented here, but what the hell is a dumbwaiter, please dont laugh I have no idea!!! 8-(
Motts could you tell me, Lynne anyone???

It looks like there's a mini person with a hat on and a scarf standing in the left corner...

I fail to see the mini person

We still have one in our nursing home and still use it, its for food trays.

Eddie...It's the dark shape in the corner, probably doesn't look like a person to yooh...

i see the little person!!!

The ends of those pipes look like the male nozzles for female hydraulic hose ends. Must have been a fancy dumb-waiter not the old fashioned hand pulley kind.

Either that or we are all wrong and those are just hot and cold water pipes where they may have had shut off valves in an easily accessible spot at one time. All the brass or coper valves and pipes that could be stripped out would have been picked clean by thieves long ago to be sold to a scap yard, probably for dope money.

Dumbwaiters come from the days when kitchens were in the basement and the finished dishes were sent upstairs to the dining room via the dumbwaiter, rather than having to carry the food upstairs. Large private homes with servants had them as well as hospitals, nursing homes, etc.

Alls I know is I would love to fill up my truck with all the metal I can in one of these places, I would make a fortune, recycle-recycle

I worked in Bldg. 93 and I do not recall a dumb waiter anywhere. In a 12 story building? The building had wards on each side. There should have been a matching one of these on the other end of the building. There should have been doors on each floor to access the dumbwaiter when it arrived. What was the mechanism to let a floor know the dumbwaiter was there with its package? Where exactly was this found? It is obviously not large enough nor practical for use as a food mover if, in fact, it was a dumbwaiter.There are 2 obvious pipes sticking out of the floor. How would a mini elevator work through those? Granted, there is an obvious pull-down door with two grasp handles in the picture. I would say the door was to restrict or enable access to something that used water pipes. Perhaps you could have completed a slightly closer inspection so as to answer some of the questions? I suppose the opportunity is no longer available to enter these buildings now. I sometimes find it irritating that a person who actually stood next to something has so little knowledge of what they were looking at. Just take the picture and leave, I guess.