Why not?
No idea.
Although laws may have changed in recent decades. Some newer buildings have rear-facing “garden apartments”.
Even single-family homes were traditionally built with the main floor half a flight up from the ground, with basements or basement apartments having their windows at ground level. Why? Inquiring minds want to know.
Kharkiv (Ukraine) 1.4 million people - is majority Russian-speaking (native language) - 66%.
Albeit for very different reasons. Line you said, those houses on the coast were built like that to withstand storm surges. Dingbat apartment buildings were built that way to maximize the number of units they could squeeze into the lot.
Now I wonder what the relation between those buildings and Zapf Dingbats may be.
Good question. Zapf dingbats are just a specific collection of the printer’s marks called dingbats
While the word is sometimes said to reference dingbat in the sense of a “general term of disparagement”,[7] dingbat refers to the stylistic star-shaped decorations, reminiscent of typographic dingbats, that often garnish the stucco façades.[8][9][10] These flourishes and other ornamental elements reflect the contemporary but more complex Googie architecture.
The construction style predates the Zapf dingbats by a few years
I once lived in a dingbat style apartment, on the floor directly above the garage level. One day there was a car fire in a car parked right under my apartment. My roommate and I smelled smoke and left the apartment. The car fire got pretty intense, and by the time the fire department arrived, there was thick black smoke pouring out of the windows of our apartment. We thought our apartment must have caught on fire, but when the car was extinguished, our apartment was fine (except for smelling like smoke for weeks). I’ve never really understood how the smoke was able to travel so readily from the carport into the apartment above it.
The construction of the buildings might predate Zapf dingbats, but I’m guessing the buildings didn’t gain that nickname until later.
It appears that dingbat fonts were the inspiration for the naming of the buildings. From the Wiki article on Dingbat apartments:
While the word is sometimes said to reference dingbat in the sense of a “general term of disparagement”,[7] dingbat refers to the stylistic star-shaped decorations, reminiscent of typographic dingbats, that often garnish the stucco façades.[8][9][10]
However, Zapf Dingbats were created in 1978, long after the application of the word to the building style. So @Zyada is the best kind of correct- technically correct.
Dingbats have been around for a long time. They’ve been called that since at least 1912.
Zapf dingbats is the collection of dingbats by Herman Zapf.
Dingbat architecture ha gone by that name since 1971
ETA: thanks @peccavi !
Right, dingbat as a term in typography long predates the Zapf font of that name. The OED has
dingbat: 2.c.ii: Printing. A typographical device other than a letter or numeral (such as an asterisk or rule), used to signal divisions in text, to replace letters in a euphemistically presented vulgar word, or for ornamentation. Also in plural: a font or typeface consisting of these.
The first quotation is from 1897.
In Australia a dingbat is a twit, a fool.
In the 1960s (and earlier), Toronto’s downtown department store windows had incredible Christmas displays. However - due to “blue laws” - curtains were drawn over the windows every Saturday night, and not re-opened until Monday morning.
It’s used that way in the US too, to some extent. To persons of my age, it’s likely to bring up memories of the character Archie Bunker in the TV show All in the Family, who would frequently call his wife a “dingbat” when she said something that he thought was stupid.
The OED gives ten meanings, including one that it labels as Australian and New Zealand, which I’ve never heard in the US:
In plural. Chiefly with the. Delirium; a disordered state of mind or consciousness such as might result from fever, intoxication, etc.; spec. delirium tremens. Frequently also in weakened sense, with reference to crazy, silly, or deluded thoughts or ideas. Often in to have the dingbats or to be in the dingbats. Also to give (a person) the dingbats: to make a person nervous or crazy.
Nor have I heard it used that way here, in 60 years … !
Today I learned about Mary Ann Bickerdyke, who ran hospitals for soldiers during the Civil War and, as the youths say, got shit done. She was no doubt a hero and saved many lives by her efforts.
Wow. As a kid growing up in Pittsburgh, Sundays in December was all about going dawntawn to see the xmas displays in the windows of Kaufmans, Gimbels, and Joseph Hornes.
According to my memory, Kaufmans was the best, Hornes the worst.
Wenhad the same in Ft. Worth, although I don’t remember who was best, except that one store had the reindeer and sleigh attached to te fire escapes
You may know of Nikolaus Pevsner, the German-British architectural historian who wrote the definitive guides to “The Buildings of England.”
Today I learned that he was both of Jewish origin and a supporter of the Nazis.