The Row House Reborn: Architecture and Neighborhoods in New York City, 1908–1929

by Andrew S. Dolkart

This fascinating study is the first to examine the transformation of residential architecture in New York City in the early 20th century.

In the decades just before and after World War I, a group of architects, homeowners, and developers pioneered innovative and affordable housing alternatives. They converted the deteriorated and bleak row houses of old New York neighborhoods into modern and stylish dwellings. Stoops were removed and drab facades were enlivened with light-colored stucco, multi-colored tilework, flower boxes, shutters, and Spanish tile parapets. Designers transformed utilitarian backyards into gardens inspired by the Italian Renaissance and rearranged interior plans so that major rooms focused on the new landscapes. This movement—an early example of what has become known as "gentrification"—dramatically changed the physical character of these neighborhoods. It also profoundly altered their social makeup as change priced poor and largely immigrant households out of the area.

Dolkart traces this aesthetic movement from its inception in 1908 with architect Frederick Sterner’s complete redesign of his home near Gramercy Park to a wave of projects for the wealthy on the East Side to the faux artist’s studios for young professionals in Greenwich Village. Dolkart began his study because the work of these architects was being demolished. His extensive research in city records and contemporary sources, such as newspapers and trade and popular magazines, unearths a wealth of information detailing the transformation of New York’s residential neighborhoods.

This significant development in the history of housing and neighborhoods in New York has never before been investigated. The Row House Reborn will interest architectural and urban historians, as well as general readers curious about New York City architecture and neighborhood development.

Genres: History

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Kathleen Hulser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engrossing exploration of what we call the brownstone with an original look at the early wave of row house restoration in the teens and twenties. This involved removing stoops, adding wrought iron balconies, artist studios on top floors, mosaic or ceramic embellishment, and shifting dining room to overlook back yards which had been turned into lush little gardens with fountains and statues. Formerly these backyards held privies, dustbins and broken furniture, offering no pleasant vista. Dolkart's analysis of Frederick Sterner's career and work in the area around Gramercy Park and East 19th St. is fascinating. You can still see the house at 145 East 119th across from where George Bellows once lived, where the door entry crowned with a frieze of giraffes is undergoing restoration.

This was a different brownstone era that our own which would recoil in horror at stripping stoops and installing diamond-paned Elizabethan windows in stuccoed facade. So, it is instructive to see how fashions in building re-use change, and how recent the notion of period perfection actually is.