>This was also the case with TV's. Where one family in the street would own a TV and all the neighbourhood kids would come and gather to watch. Well before my time though :)

I am old enough to remember as a child (my grandmother had the only TV in the building, 4 apartments) how every thursday evening all the people from the other apartments came to watch TV (there was a very, very popular quiz show on thursdays in Italy), and after the show we all had some biscuits/cakes (and the adults a glass of wine) together.

My father used to tell me how when he was a kid his father was often asked by the neighbours to put his radio (the only device in several buildings) on the window sill in the evening so that people assembled in the common court could hear the news during the WWII.