PennyLeeD2
On houses? Buildings? On the sidewalk? I admit I'm stumped, I have no idea what you are talking about. And I LIVE in Boston. Added: Oh, those. They are service access door to the lower levels. If you open the door, there will be steps down to the basement, which isn't completely underground. It's about half underground and half above the sidewalk level. They are on older buildings that sit right on the sidewalk line with no setback. On newer commercial buildings, there will be an opening in the sidewalk with steel doors over it (like in New York City). On others, particularly on Beacon Hill, in Bay Village, and the South End, where the buildings are set back a few feet from the sidewalk, there will be a really narrow couple of steps leading down to a full height door, but off to the side of the main steps up half a level. Same thing -- these were service entrances where there was no way to get to an alley in the back. Nowadays, some of these are 1-floor condos selling for a million dollars each. Up the half steps is Parlor Level, down the half is Garden Level. Added: Don't believe half of what the tour guides tell you, they are notorious for spreading urban legends. The most egregious one is cow paths determined the roads. Not true. Horse and wagon tracks, yes, but not cows. But even those meanderings were because people didn't build their houses in rows at first, but pretty much anywhere they wanted. The kids built next door to Mom and Dad, then these 2 houses expanded into those 15, 3 burned down, rebuilt bigger and newer, another little village got absorbed, and eventually you have Boston. And Boston never outlawed taking baths. The 19th century buildings were built with the main floor deliberately a half story above the road to keep the street noise, dust, and curious eyes out, and to provide some air into the basement. When the sidewalks were rebuilt up close to the house years later, the ground floor door got cut in half. Colonial houses were built with no basement, ground floor on the ground, and they haven't sunk at all. (Paul Revere's house, for example.) There are both types (flush and half up) all over Beacon Hill and the North and South Ends.

William O
They are doors to the lower level. At one time they were most likely full sized doors, with steps outside leading down to the door, but as streets and sidewalks moved outwards towards the buildings the steps leading to the full sized doors were filled in requiring the trimming down of those doors into the mini doors and the addition of interior stairs.

tigerlor13
You know, I dont think you want to know.... I had no idea either so I asked a tour guide once, while I was being a Masshole and decided to tour the city i live in.. XP and um, apparently, they were used for when a person died and did not want to be carried out the front door of the house. I guess it was bad luck and so people built these smaller doors to drag the dead out of so as to avoid bad luck and a haunted house. This is only what I have been told, I really hope it's not the case. lol.

Melissa E
Before oil, gas and electric heat were readily available a lot of buildings were heated by coal (or sometimes wood) furnaces. Since carrying a wagonload of coal downstairs to the basement by the bucketful wasn't a really fun activity, a lot of buildings had coal chutes (think of a playground slide with sides to it) to allow the coal to be dumped or shoveled down the chute into a coal bin in the basement near the furnace. The door would normally be left closed unless a load of coal was being received. Some though very few of these were actually still in use into the 1950's.