Architects had sat at drafting tables decades ago and specifically designed a compartment for this thing to live in.
Builders had framed the wood and poured the plaster around it, ensuring it would be a part of the home forever.
It was a feature. It was a selling point. And yet, here we were in 2024, and we didn’t even have a name for it.
Sarah told me that even the property manager showing the unit just shrugged when she asked about it.
“It’s just part of the wall,” the manager had said, dismissively. “Most people just put a couch in front of it.”
That response bothered me more than I could explain. How could we lose the history of our own living spaces so completely?
I started digging. I went down a rabbit hole of architectural history, looking at floor plans from the 1920s and 30s.
I started thinking about how many things we use today—our Wi-Fi routers, our smart hubs—that will look like alien technology to someone a hundred years from now.
I eventually posted the photo to a group of historical preservationists, desperate for an answer to the metal accordion mystery.
An hour later, an older gentleman commented. “That’s a Murphy ironing board frame, but it’s missing the wooden insert,” he wrote. “Or, depending on the height, a fold-away breakfast bench.”
But then, a woman from a local historical society messaged me with a different answer that felt much more poignant.
She explained that in these specific urban tenements, these were often “coolers” or “window cribs”—places designed to maximize airflow and space in cramped city lives.