InAmerican English, astoop is a smallstaircase ending in a platform and leading to the entrance of anapartment building or other building.
Originally brought to theHudson Valley ofNew York bysettlers from theNetherlands, the word "stoop" is part of theDutch vocabulary that has survived there fromcolonial times until the present. Stoop, "a smallporch", comes from Dutchstoep[1] (meaning: step/sidewalk, pronounced the same as English "stoop"); the word is now in general use in theNortheastern United States and is probably[original research?] spreading.
New York stoops may have been a simple carry-over from the Dutch practice of constructing elevated buildings.[2]
It has been well documented that the stoop served the function of keeping people and their homes separated from horse manure, which would accumulate in the streets at high rates. Horses were the main transport means in New York for decades, and thousands of them were kept in the city by common citizens.[3]
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Traditionally, in North American cities, the stoop served an important function as a spot for brief, incidental social encounters. Homemakers, children, and other household members would sit on the stoop outside their home to relax, and greet neighbors passing by. Similarly, while on an errand, one would stop and converse with neighbors sitting on their stoops. Within an urban community, stoop conversations helped to disseminate gossip and reaffirm casual relationships. Similarly, it was the place that children would congregate to playstreet games such asstoop ball. Urbanites lacking yards often hold stoop sales instead ofyard sales.
In her pivotal bookThe Death and Life of Great American Cities,Jane Jacobs includes the stoop as part of her model of the self-regulating urban street. By providing a constant human presence watching the street, institutions such as stoops preventstreet crime, without intervention from authority figures. In addition, they motivate better street maintenance and beautification, by giving it social as well as utilitarian value.
