We had one of these in our basement when I was a kid. It had the lid on top for with the compartment for the block of ice
My grandfather as a young man delivered ice. He had stories that at many deliveries the customer would share a shot of whiskey with him so at the end of the day he would be pretty much in the bag.
The other story was that in the summer neighbor hood kids would be stealing slivers of ice out of his wagon while he was carrying ice into a house.
I lived in a place that had ice delivery for a while.
He’d give the kids ice slivers. He was later replaced
by an ice company called “Nisise,” pronounced ‘nice ice.’
My folks would occasionally have people over for a party.
One time, they put down corn starch onto the hardwood living room floor to make it easier to dance.
The next day, they noticed the corn starch had ground down all the softer pieces of the hardwood, leaving a floor that looked to have little honeycombs throughout. I think they carpeted over it.
Considering how many different deliveries there were in that era, it sounds like the whole darned neighborhood was half in the bag. :^)