THE MURDER SITE
An investigation of the Borden house is necessary to understanding the possible motive for the crime. The prosecution case was built around the Borden daughters’ frustration over their father’s refusal to move the family to a neighborhood more appropriate to their wealth. There was also resentment over a gift of a farm to their stepmother Abby that was seen as both reducing value of the estate the daughters might inherit and as money that could just as well have purchased a better house. Andrew’s point of view might very well have been that a farm would produce income where a bigger house would just produce more expenses.
There are two neighborhoods of particular interest to the study of the Borden murders. The first is where Mr. Andrew J. Borden's residence was located. This section of the Fall River Ward Map for 1882 gives a detailed picture of the south side of town. The side of town where this group of Bordens lived. Colors have been added to indicate the kind of activities that took place. Uncolored areas are residential sections. Recalling from the panorama map shown earlied that the dwellings in this section of town tended to be box like multi-family structures. By zooming to Second Street in on this map the lot marked “A. J. Borden” can be found.
The house at 92 Second Street is just south of the intersection with Borden Street (the Bordens were a prominent family) and one street away from South Main Street the commercial center of the city. Originally it was intended that two families live in the structure, one family to each floor. Mr. Borden did remodel the house to make it a single family dwelling.
Here we have a contemporary view of two Fall River neighborhoods. The photograph of Second Street is in front of the Borden house. 
Note how close the houses are to each other and to the sidewalk. The buildings themselves are boxlike with a minimum amount of decoration. All these are traits of working class neighborhoods where one of the priorities is to maximize the number of inhabitants per square foot of land.
The second photograph is a view toward the center of town down Rock Street. After her acquittal Lizzie Borden with her sister Emma bought a house near the spot where this photo was taken. In this neighborhood there is more space between houses and the houses are set back from the sidewalk. The houses themselves are larger and with more ornate decoration. All this indicates an affluent neighborhood. By returning to the 1877 panoramic map and zooming in of the area north of the center of town one can get another view of this neighborhood.
In the upper levels of society of the Gilded Age a family’s house was more than just a place to sleep and take meals together. It was the key element needed to support the family’s public social life. The house is where the family entertained the other members of their social circle. Since this social circle was built on reciprocity one could not become a part of this social class if one were not ready to host their share of parties, balls, dinners, and teas in their home.
The house on Second Street could not support the social life of a member the class to which Mr. Borden’s wealth had elevated him. Aside from the fact he never moved from the working class neighborhood on Second Street and thus was in the wrong part of town for such social activity the house was too small to adequately support even the smallest of social functions the upper class engaged in.
One reason the homes of the wealthy in this era were large is because they needed large public rooms for the entertaining. If the family anticipated hosting affairs with 100 or so guests the house need space to put them. 
The first floor of the house is where these public rooms were located. The illustration here compares the first floor of Andrew Borden’s house with the first floor of the house built by Mr. Ruggles S. Morse in Portland, Maine in 1859. The obvious difference between the two houses is the size of the foundation. The Borden house is 22 feet wide by 38 feet deep. The Morse house is roughly a square 64 feet on a side. An outline of the Borden house to scale (in red) is laid over the Morse house and is about the same size as the parlor.
A public social life would have been important to the Borden daughters. This was how women of their class met young men who were appropriate for them to marry. If the Bordens weren’t entertaining then officially they didn’t exist and wouldn’t be invited to social functions. The wife or official hostess of the family was responsible for managing this social life and particularly for seeing to it that unmarried daughters got introduced to eligible young men. That both of Andrew’s daughters were spinsters is not something to be overlooked lightly when evaluating motives for murder.
Another working class feature in the layout of the Borden house is no “wasted” space on the family level. It has no hallways nor real closets. 
Every square foot is used for living. Emma had to go through Lizzie’s room to get to her own. This arrangement was typical of working class dwellings because there was so little square footage to begin with and the families tended to be large. Compare this with family level in the Morse house. Here all the rooms open off the central hallway. Each bedroom in this house has a closet. The Borden house also lacks private space, another type of “wasted” space. The upper class home would have rooms or even entire suites where a person could go to be by themselves. This can be seen in the plan of the Morse house.
Another aspect of the house and the expressed desire of both daughters to move to a more up scale neighborhood might also be related utilities and services. The Morse house when built in 1859 had central heating, gas lighting, and hot and cold running water. It can be deduced from the plan that the Borden house did not have central heating nor running hot water. It did have cold water in the sink rooms at the rear on each level. By 1892 other modern conveniences including electricity, telephone, and water closets were making their appearance in the more affluent neighborhood in the country. Did the Hill neighborhood of Fall River, where the Borden daughter wanted to live, have these luxuries? This needs to be researched. What is probably certain though is that Mr. Borden would most have considered them unnecessary extravagances.
