Everything about Brownstone totally explained
Brownstone is a brown
Triassic sandstone which was once a popular
building material. The term is also understood to be a
terraced house (rowhouse) clad in this material.
Brownstone dwellings
In
Boston and
New York City, a "brownstone" is understood to be a
terraced house (rowhouse) clad in brownstone. These brownstone apartments typically have stairways which lead from the sidewalk to a second-floor apartment entrance, a design originally intended to avoid bringing in the mud and horse droppings commonly found at street level, a problem that existed when these apartments were built and horses roamed the streets. New York City brownstones tend to be found in certain older neighborhoods, which are perhaps most common in
Brooklyn. For example, the
neighborhood of
Bedford Stuyvesant has the largest inventory of brownstones in the entire City of New York, followed closely by
Park Slope. Many brownstones have been renovated in recent years, leading to (and/or as a result of)
gentrification in areas like
Park Slope,
Bedford Stuyvesant and
Fort Greene. On the popular 1980s-'90s American television program
The Cosby Show, the affluent Huxtable family, the show's central characters, lived in a Brooklyn brownstone, whereas more recently, Sex and The City's protagonist,
Carrie Bradshaw resided in a brownstone at a fictitious
Upper East Side address in
New York City.
Philadelphia has an abundant number of brownstones. Due to
urban renewal, brownstones are developing in
Detroit as well.
In
Chicago, a brownstone typically refers to a free-standing house, originally built for a single family, clad in brownstone. While many Chicago brownstones have subsequently been split into multiple rental or condominium units, many others remain single-family homes.
The term Brownstone may also be used as slang for
heroin, particularly in the United States; "
Mr. Brownstone" is a
Guns N' Roses song about heroin use. This could be related to brownstone neighborhoods in Harlem where dealers were likely to live, as in the lyrics of the
Velvet Underground song,
I'm Waiting for the Man.
Notable types of brownstone
Hummelstown brownstone
Hummelstown brownstone is extremely popular along the East Coast of the
United States of America, with numerous government buildings from
West Virginia,
Pennsylvania,
New York,
Maryland, and
Delaware being faced entirely with the stone. The stone comes from the Hummelstown Quarry in
Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, a small town outside of
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The Hummelstown Quarry is the largest provider of brownstone in along the east coast. Typically the stone was transported out of Hummelstown through the
Brownstone and Middletown Railroad or taken by truck up to the
Erie Canal.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Brownstone'.
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