The Basement: An Appreciation
by Ben Branham on February 20, 2008 in Opinion
“Mom! The Meatloaf!”
It was during the postwar years of the 1950s and 60s that the American basement began to develop an identity of its own. This coincided with the phenomenal growth of the suburbs and the development of mid-sized, single family homes in large subdivisions. As more Americans settled into life on the cul-de-sac with its aqua walls, starburst clocks, shag rugs and daily visits from door-to-door salesmen, the space at the bottom of the stairs leading down from the kitchen began to grow up.
In some cases, the nondescript concrete floors and cinder-block walls remained unadorned as the basement took on the utilitarian role of storage space and laundry room. In this regard, it gradually replaced the attic as the preferred site for safekeeping items of all sorts, from luggage and furniture to Christmas ornaments, high school yearbooks and old record collections.
But with the baby boomers entry into adolescence, the use, look and feel of the basement also acquired a more mature flavor. The basement became a hidden venue for living out the awkwardness, experimentation and loneliness of puberty. It also came to serve as a fitting metaphor: an underground space, out-of-site of adults and the tidy, well-ordered household; a safe haven where the clumsy, uncomfortable transition between childhood and adulthood could take place in the dark, behind closed doors, with the endgame being emergence into the Ajax-clean world above.
Despite this relegation, or perhaps because of it, the basement suddenly became hip. Rather than simply function as the de facto space for teenage kids and their friends to gather without their parents’ fears of scuffing up the household, the basement was a cauldron of all things cool: bean bag chairs, lava lamps, psychedelic posters, electric guitars, record players, games of “spin the bottle,” parties with booze and banned substances (See “That 70’s Show”).
With the baby boom generation defining the basement as the realm of youth, rebellion, style and a broadly construed notion of “play,” it’s no surprise that a future generations of basements have taken on an even more multifaceted domain of recreation and an extension of the normative household. Today, basements are still very much in use by children and teenagers as safe places to gambol out-of-reach of the fine china, only the amenities now take the form of the latest video game consoles, pinball machines, foosball tables and refrigerators stocked with soda.
But the contemporary basement plays other roles too: from adult playground-complete with full bar, poker room, wine cellar-to home office or guest bedroom, it has become the most versatile room in the house. All this is to say that I’m sick and tired of the basement not getting its fair shake as a microcosm of a slice of American history–a look at its uses over time reveals a treasure trove of nuance about the country and its culture. And, truth be told, as a future graduate of the Kennedy School, I’ll probably end up living in one. Maybe even yours.
All apologies to the attic, bare and empty.
Written by Ben Branham · Filed Under Opinion
Ben Branham (MPP2) is a former News Editor of the Citizen. Prior to his time at the Harvard Kennedy School, Branham worked as a press secretary in the administration of New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. He spent last summer creating “One Vote Under God” (www.onevoteundergod.org), a web matrix documenting the role of faith and religion in the 2008 presidential campaign as part of the national News21 initiative (newsinitiative.org). He attended college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he majored in English. Other past jobs include waiting tables, mowing lawns, giving tours, and selling pies to raise money for people with HIV/AIDS. Originally from Chicago, Branham now lives in Cambridge, MA with no pets. He's a Scorpio.
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I lived in my parents basement in London for many years. In the UK, if you live in them, they are basements. If you put your child in the cellar, it is known as “child abuse” and frowned upon - even in England.