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I said San Francisco, though I know Northeastern cities have great row houses. Thank you for the photos of Philadelphia...they were very informative. When I think of Boston, I think of Louisburg Squre...I think that's the name.
In San Francisco, there are so few SFD residences, that row houses are the norm throughout this 7x7 mile city. Pacific Heights is one of the premier neighborhoods and the individualized architecture is really interesting. The Marina district is similar in this regard, though there is much more stucco - some of it Spanish Colonial, some of it Venetian, and much more. Every neighborhood has a slightly different type of row house. In the west of the city, in the Sunset and in Richmond, there are the "tunnel" row houses. This allows you to enter parallel to a garage and use the "tunnel," as I perceive it, to get past the garage and to the entry of the dwelling, while there is another living floor above the "tunnel" and the garage. Heck, at least they have a garage.
Last edited by robertpolyglot; 03-10-2012 at 07:53 PM..
Got to admit. Didnt really appreciate how much of a rowhouse city DC is until coming back here. I still wouldnt place it with Philly and Baltimore. But it is very much in that next tier.
Got to admit. Didnt really appreciate how much of a rowhouse city DC is until coming back here. I still wouldnt place it with Philly and Baltimore. But it is very much in that next tier.
Yes, Philly and Baltimore are the quintessential rowhouse cities, but I will say that DC's rowhouse neighborhoods are, overall, much more well-preserved and put on a very good face for rowhouse living.
Unfortunately, Philly and Baltimore suffered from similar degrees of de-industrialization and disinvestment that really took a tragic toll on some once-gorgeous neighborhoods. I know that in Philly, in particular, you can also find a lot of unfortunate "modernization" that took place over the years, which really bastardized some amazing historic rowhouse architecture.
Thankfully, not all is lost and there is a lot of new rehabs going in in both cities that is re-emphasizing historic architecture, but both Philadelphia and Baltimore should absolutely look to DC as model with its plethora of modern, revitalized rowhouse neighborhoods.
I said San Francisco, though I know Northeastern cities have great row houses. Thank you for the photos of Philadelphia...they were very informative. When I think of Boston, I think of Louisburg Squre...I think that's the name.
In San Francisco, there are so few SFD residences, that row houses are the norm throughout this 7x7 mile city. Pacific Heights is one of the premier neighborhoods and the individualized architecture is really interesting. The Marina district is similar in this regard, though there is much more stucco - some of it Spanish Colonial, some of it Venetian, and much more. Every neighborhood has a slightly different type of row house. In the west of the city, in the Sunset and in Richmond, there are the "tunnel" row houses. This allows you to enter parallel to a garage and use the "tunnel," as I perceive it, to get past the garage and to the entry of the dwelling, while there is another living floor above the "tunnel" and the garage. Heck, at least they have a garage.
Rowhouses have to be connected and most often will share a wall with another house.
Been to all these cities. NYC ranks 1st IMHO. Followed by either Boston or San Francisco. Since they are completely different I cannot choose. I think most of Philly, Baltimore and Washington DC 's are either ugly, awkward or boring by comparison. The only thing you have left then to argue about is what constitutes a 'real' row house, how many there are and the perceived lack of vegetation in front of them.
BTW most of the ugly, treeless SF row houses shown so far are in the outer western districts which is quite foggy and the need for sunshine trumps the need for trees. And they were built in Interwar Period so many were designed to accommodate the automobile. While it's true that, in the main, San Francisco is not a street tree city (for the above mentioned reason) many of older districts have them and there has been a dramatic increase in tree planting in the last 10 years so once these grow up SF should look much more green.
I didn't notice any rowhomes in San Francisco but I guess people may classify what a rowhome is differently. Technically there needs to be a shared front wall, otherwise it is a townhome. I've never been to Pittsburgh.
I didn't notice any rowhomes in San Francisco but I guess people may classify what a rowhome is differently. Technically there needs to be a shared front wall, otherwise it is a townhome. I've never been to Pittsburgh.
You probably didn't go to the West or the South side of town then. They're filled with nothing but rowhomes.
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