Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
I doubt it. They may have been horse stables, but you didn't have attached garages in those years, largely because cars frequently exploded.
Attached garages are a pretty recent thing. Not very common pre-1960's.
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I don't even think they were horse stables. Not every city dweller in the 19th Century and earlier owned a horse.
My understanding of row houses, at least in the US, is that they were originally "working class" housing. When the industrial revolution got going, and people started moving to cities to work in factories and whatnot, these row houses served as speculative housing for those people. I thought I read somewhere that row houses could even be thought of as the first speculative housing, that is, housing built for people/the masses ready to move in, vs. houses that used to be custom made for or built by the person/people/household that wanted a dwelling. These early workers usually walked to work, or later, took the horsecar/streetcar to work. If you owned a horse (let alone more than 1 horse) in the city, you were generally well-to-do. It takes money to house and feed a horse. Horseback riding was actually uncommon back then; only cops rode horseback in cities, as well as well-to-do people for "leisure riding" on bridle paths in large parks. If you were very well-to-do, you had a carriage and carriage house.
At least this is what I've read in various books over the years.
In regards to the topic of this thread, no, I've never lived in a row house, and probably never will. And to be honest, it's not on my bucket list.