My Pet Project:The American Rowhouse [Your Discussion Needed]

[CGII]

I've been in the process of sketching out an SSP-esque poster showcasing majour styles of prewar, American rowhouses. It'll show a city block, with each rowhouse being from a different US city, with Westwardmost on the left and Easternmost on the right.
What I need from you (and what is to differentiate this thread from the other) is to discuss what majour US cities feature architecture styles of rowhomes that attribute that style directly to that city. Like, Brooklyn rowhomes are very distinctive and identifyable with Brooklyn. A place like Columbus, however, does not have that type of profile in its rowhouse stock. I need to refine my current list [below] to cover all the bases and get a solid lineup for this:

Boston
NY:SoHo
NY:Brooklyn
Philadelphia
Baltimore
Washington, DC
Pittsburgh
Detroit (in my first draft the Detroit space was an empty lot, as a sort of dark joke)
Chicago
St. Louis
San Francisco

I've got an open mind, so start selling me (but please avoid boosterism, I don't want someone from either an
a:low profile town, or
b:town without prolific rowhouses
to come forward and start boosterising this thread. So, sorry everyone from Plano or Schaumburg).

[Steely Dan]

i don't want to sound like a whiner, but if you're talking about prolific row-house cities, i think cincy deserves a nod, no? but don't ask me about specific city rowhouse styles, that's not my area of expertise.

[CGII]

I'm not familiar with Cincy's housing stock, I'll have to take a look. Certainly not whining.

[STERNyc]

Baltimore's also worth a look.

[CGII]

Of course! I had that in my list, I forgot.

[Prahaboheme]

New Orleans? Its pretty distinctive..

[JivecitySTL]

Great idea! While there is a signature St. Louis-style vernacular housing type (the standard 4-flat), the city's rowhouses really run the gamut of different styles. I would say the overwhelming majority of them are simple, with relatively little ornamentation compared to other housing types, and of course everything here is made of red brick.

Some common themes that I would consider unique to St. Louis rowhousing, or at least very prevalent:

Mansard roofs (although an awful lot have the flattops too)
Inset doorways
Arched windows
Red brick
Irregular rows (ex. Federal style abutting 2nd Empire)
Simple, flat facades

If you'd like more pics, I'd be happy to share, I have tons of them.

[hauntedheadnc]

I don't know if it's unique to it or not, but Winston-Salem, NC has a few blocks of rowhouses in Old Salem that feature big front porches.

[Taller Better]

So............ would Canadian cities fit in too, or is this strictly an American project? If not, I still look forward to the pix! I lovvvvvvvvvvve rowhouses!

[bnk]

I am having row-house Deja vu.

Didn’t we have a thread on this topic earlier?

[Evergrey]

Pittsburgh has a rather eclectic mix of housing styles, including its rowhomes.

Wood-frame vinyl-sided (and rather ugly) rowhomes are common in the traditionally working-class neighborhoods (Troy Hill, Polish Hill, Bloomfield). The architecture is unrelentingly plain, but generations of incremental modifications have created interesting and distinctive streetscapes. Here is an example from Troy Hill:


A collection of North Side neighborhoods offer the finest rowhousing in the city... mid/late 1800s Victorians catering to the upper/middle class. These are from Allegheny West's Beech St.:


The Mexican War Streets (also in the North Side) is interesting due to its complete lack of uniformity... as with most of the city... it was developed lot-by-lot as opposed to block-by-block. The architectural contrasts are striking and create a visually engaging streetscape.


These simple brick mid/late 1800s rowhomes are typical of large historically working-class neighborhoods like Lawrenceville and South Side. This photo also gives an example of the sloping row, common in Pittsburgh due to the turbulent topography:

[ColDayMan]

Cincinnati's rowhouse typically have arches over the doors aka:



Columbus DOES have a distinctive style in its rows as they are generally apartment-style and have a flat face with a subtle castle-turret spaced throughout the structure aka:

[Segun]

the most 'Chicago' style buildings are not rowhouses, rather they're flats:

[hudkina]

Detroit isn't a rowhouse city, so it doesn't really belong on the poster. But even still the rowhouses that Detroit does have vary so much that there really isn't one particular style. One thing I have noticed is that a lot of rowhouses that were built on corners have the last house turned to the one side. I'm not sure if this is common in other cities but it happens quite a bit in the rowhouses in Detroit.

For example,






BTW, I think the cities should run as follows:

San Francisco-New Orleans-St. Louis-Chicago-Cincinnati-Pittsburgh-Charleston-Washington-Baltimore-Philadelphia-New York-Boston

[Shawn]

^---- Good order, but if we are to include Canada, where would you put Montreal, between NY and Boston, or to the right of Boston?

[JivecitySTL]

Well shit, since everyone else is posting pics I guess I should. Sorry if there are too many, I get carried away sometimes.

St. Louis rowhouses:

[sharkfood]

There is a noticeable pattern to which cities are being mentioned and not mentioned in this thread. Philadelphia is the point of origin of the archetypical American rowhouse. It was the first city in which the rowhouse was the basic structure in the urban fabric (the rule not the exception). In Boston and New York, by contrast, the detached house was the basic structure and attached housing only developed as the cities densified.

The line of settlement west of Philadelphia runs through Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Columbus, and St. Louis. Hence, those cities have an abundance of rowhouses by American standards. By contrast, the line of Yankee settlement runs through upstate New York, Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago. In these cities, rowhouses are much less common if not unheard of. This is the Yankee influence. While Boston has its Beacon Hill and Back Bay, as soon as you leave the immediate vicinity of downtown, the housing becomes a mixture of detached homes and small apartment buildings. You see a similar mix in the northern cities of the midwest.

Other places with an abundance of rowhouses? Anywhere on the Northeast corridor from Trenton to Alexandria, Virginia is prime rowhouse territory. Also, Pennsylvania cities north and west of Philadelphia like Allentown, Reading and Lancaster. Outside of that orbit, I have heard that Albany has some stock of old Dutch rowhouses but never seen pictures. Richmond has an abundance in Church Hill and the Fan District. Charleston and Savannah have some. Others?

[village person]

Charleston doesn't have very many rows to speak of. Its famous Rainbow Row, I've learned, originally had storefronts on the ground floors of most of the houses, so it's kind of iffy. The rest of its rows aren't nearly as remarkable as the city's more characteristic stand-alone town houses.



Savannah has considerably more rows, but not as unique a style of its own. It generally has a mix of housing types and styles all next to each other with little monotony -- more detached/semi-detached than rows. Its longest row has 15 triple-bay houses and is a most uncharacteristic stretch of homogeniety for Savannah.

I'd say the unique elements of Savannah's row house stock are A) "high basements" due to the shallow water table and B) basement-less clapboard rows outside the wealthier wards.



Pics:










high basements:















A variety of oddly different houses neighboring one another is a more common sight, though usually detached/semi-detached:






And here are some clapboard rows, no basements:

[Cirrus]

Canada is great and all, and yeah yeah, I know, North America, but I suspect CGII is talking about just the US.

Anyway, for Washington you should use this, with optional turret as shown here (the hex version is the most common).

Baltimore is easy. It should be one of these.

[mrherodotus]

Keep in mind, that every rowhouse city tends to have a variety of styles. That said, here are some characteristics that are common to rows in certain cities.


Boston: The curved projecting bay that runs the full height of the house. South End houses have high stoops.

NY: Brownstone, and the high stoop. Nothing is more NY than that.

Philly: The West Philadelphia style porch fronted row.

Baltimore: Low marble stoops, and extensive use of marble trim.

DC: Turrets and projecting bays. Cast iron stoops and railings. Rows are set back from the sidewalk.

Pittsburgh: Dormers. Sideways stoops. Elaborate wooden window hoods and door surrounds.

Columbus: Short porch rows.

Cincy: Semi-circular hood mouldings.

St Louis: Dormers. Recessed doorways.