Cave Life

City living!

Here's the iron grate under my stoop, the entrance to my little carved-out studio in Jersey City. I just had some work done on it and the iron monger's first words were "It's not pretty, is it?"

It's still not pretty but here's what changed:

1. The door now sits comfortably in the frame. Previously, I had to give it a firm push to open and close it. 
2. The rust is gone. There was a lot of rust.
3. They added bars between bars as well as plates around the lock. Now I can get a locksmith to put a latch instead of a keyed lock inside so it's no longer a fire hazard. Previously, if I had a latch, a visitor could just have reached in and unlatched it.
4. I had them leave out one bar so postal carriers/FedEx/UPS/etc can drop in small packages, such as comic books in padded envelopes. I get a lot of those.