That sounds like what I’m talking about.
Not clear:
"Fire officials said they believed the box had been there for decades. Higherups at the city Design and Construction Department said they built 119 pedestrian ramps on Atlantic Ave. between Fourth Ave. and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway four years ago.
But residents said they had only noticed the oddly placed call box in recent weeks."
A friend of mine has a house that looks almost as stupid as that one… Years ago a devoloper built a luxury apartment complex in her neighborhood and eminent domain was invoked… she didn’t lose her house but they moved the street her house was on to the other side of her house. So now her deck and patio are in the front of her house and the front door is in the back…
This is not the situation I described. My funny little discovery involved (as I stated) a fire hydrant in a driveway curbcut; your linked example shows a fire call box in a crosswalks curbcut. Brooklyn is a big place.
What makes me suspicious about that picture is that they didn’t include the other side of the garage in the picture. It’s been cropped off by the photo. I’d not be surprised if that’s where the driveway and true garage entrance lies as the brick roof over the garage door does seem awfully low. We have two houses on our block with garage doors on both (opposing) sides. I believe they were to accomodate something about a boat but imagine the reasons could be many.
Or, as is the case with some model homes, the driveway isn’t poured until they’ve finished with the house as a model and are ready to sell it. In the meantime, to make it look more attractive, they’ll landscape that area and the inside of the garage has a purpose other than holding cars, maybe it’s a interiors color and texture sample area (carpet, tile, paint, wallpaper upgrades) or something like that.
This just seems like a mistake that would have been noticed a dozen times over during construction.
As was Hundig’s house in Wagner’s Die Walküre. He even had a sword stuck in it.
Can’t answer the OP, but… two neighboring houses just down the street from us had, for many years, a fire hydrant right smack in the middle of their shared driveway. Never could find out how that came about; fortunately, no one ever backed into it or drove over it. The city moved the hydrant a few feet out of the way just in the last few months.
Nerts! Mine’s not there!
About a year and a half ago Leno held up this picture with the comment, “This is what happens when you build a house on acid. Don’t go out the front door too fast!”
Truth of the matter is, the house was still under construction, and the porch connecting the front doors to the stoops hadn’t gone in yet. (I took the picture, and never even noticed this. I was trying to keep various pieces of construction equipment out of the frame.)