trap doors in basement

03/06/03 - posted by tom

We are in the process of renovating a house on 2nd avenue and noticed an odd feature in the basement. There is a raised floor on one side and in two places on the raised wooden floor there are hatch doors. When opened these hatches reveal small boxes that appear to be a cross between a safe and a cooler. Each is about 3 eaches deep and 12x12". Does anyone have any idea what these might be? The house was built in 1906. We had two theories: 1) was it was a cooler for ice, the other was that it was a hiding spot during prohibition.