The milk chute
These little doors are interesting. I used to see homes with this interesting little hatch. It was in a different location in different homes, but usually near the kitchen, or the main door of the residence, built into the wall of the building. Called a “milk chute,” I think, it was a cupboard for the milkman to put the deliveries of milk each day, one side opening to the outside, and the other opening into the home. My house never had one. Our milkman just placed bottles, then plastic containers, then cartons, and finally vinyl bags of milk by our back step. But I remember seeing these little hatches in other people’s homes. It's a quaint, anachronistic thing, like remembering a hand pump in the kitchen (which my grandparents' house had until the 1970s). One home I used to visit had been renovated so that its milk chute was entirely enclosed within the home, no longer a portal to the outside. Then it was used as a little storage cubby hole in the kitchen. It was interesting. I enjoyed playing with the latch and just opening and closing it for no particular reason except to feel what it was like (because my home didn’t have one).