The coal chute was a small metal door in the sidewalk. You walked over it every day and it rang under your shoes. The coal truck backed up to the building and the man opened the metal door and the coal went down the chute into the basement and the basement was where the furnace lived. The furnace ate coal and the building stayed warm and the super shoveled the coal and the super was the most important person in the building because the super controlled the heat.

The coal chute door was cast iron. It had a diamond pattern on it so you would not slip. The city put diamonds in the sidewalk for you. Every coal chute door was a small piece of industrial design that nobody called design. They called it a coal chute. The door is still there on some blocks. The coal is gone but the door remains because nobody removes cast iron from a sidewalk. It is easier to walk over history than to dig it up.

The coal came from Pennsylvania. The coal came on a train and the train came to a yard and the yard loaded the truck and the truck drove to your block. The supply chain was visible. You could see the truck. You could see the man. You could hear the coal hit the basement floor. Now the heat comes from a pipe in the street connected to a plant you have never seen burning fuel you cannot name. The heat arrives and you do not know where it was born.

The super on my block kept the coal chute locked with a padlock because kids would open it and throw things down. The coal chute was a mailbox to the basement. The super did not appreciate the mail. The coal chute is the last door in the city that goes down. Every other door takes you sideways. The coal chute took you to the foundation. The building started where the coal chute ended.

See also: Water Tank, Tenement Window