On 26-3-2013 20:07, Cousin Ricky wrote:
> Christian Froeschlin <chr### [at] chrfrde> wrote:
>> Reminds me of Copenhagen: many building had this sort of half-
>> submerged floor. Our stay coincided with the strongest rainfall
>> since 30 years, and most of them were completely flooded.
>
> Interesting.  In the downtown shopping district of St. Thomas, the sidewalk, and
> hence the store entrances, sometimes drop below street level; or more
> accurately, the street rises above the sidewalk level.  The city was built by
> the Danish in the late 1600s.  The downtown area is a narrow, two block wide
> strip sandwiched between the harbor and the mountains.
>

In some cases, and I think Amsterdam too, the cellar areas beneath the 
houses were used as store rooms, kitchens, or shops. In epochs without 
fridges ;-)  that had certain advantages for food although the dampness 
probably was huge (well, depending on the areas of course). Only later, 
especially in the 19th century with the industrialisation, those cellar 
floors also became the living quarters for the very poor.

So, there are these examples, and those mentioned by Paolo, where debris 
filling gradually elevated the city level.

Thomas

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