brownstone

Four-story brownstones in Harlem, just south of 125th Street, 2004

Brownstone rowhouses in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn

Romanesque revival building in Colorado, built in 1890

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.

Notable types of brownstone

Apostle Island brownstone

In the 19th century Basswood Island was the site of a quarry run by the Bass Island Brownstone Company which operated from 1868 into the 1890s. The brownstone from this and other Apostle Islands quarries was in great demand, and brownstone from Basswood Island was used in the construction of the first Milwaukee County Courthouse in the 1860s.^[1]

Hummelstown brownstone

The Barbour County Courthouse (1903-05) in Philippi, West Virginia is faced entirely in 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 on 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.

Portland brownstone

Portland brownstone is another popular brownstone. The stone from quarries located in Portland, Connecticut was used in a number of landmark buildings in Chicago, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, New Haven, Connecticut, and Hartford, Connecticut.

Brownstone dwellings

There are many brownstones throughout numerous New York City neighborhoods, especially Brooklyn Heights, The Upper West Side, and Park Slope. Brownstones are highly desired and can cost more than 10 million dollars.

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. These houses attract the young and newlyweds.

Due to urban renewal, brownstones are developing in Detroit as well.

Popular culture

The Manhattan brownstone used for exteriors in the
A&E TV series, A Nero Wolfe Mystery (2001–2002)

Rex Stout's fictional detective Nero Wolfe lives in a luxurious and comfortable New York City brownstone on West 35th Street. (There are no actual brownstones in that part of New York).

In the television show I Love Lucy (1951–1957), the Ricardos lived in a converted brownstone apartment building on New York's East 68th Street owned by their friends the Mertzes. On the popular American television program The Cosby Show (1984–1992), the affluent Huxtable family, the show's central characters, lived in a Brooklyn brownstone. Carrie Bradshaw, the protagonist of Sex and The City, resided in a brownstone at a fictitious Upper East Side address in New York City.

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.

See also

• Dimension stone
• Railroad apartment
• Sandstone
• Hummelstown Brownstone Company

References

External links

• Website devoted to the Apostle Island brownstone quarries in Wisconsin.
• Website devoted to the Weser brownstone quarries from Germany being imported into the US.
• Link to Brownstone Manufacturer Brownstone Fabricator in New York.
• Link to Brownstone Supplier Natural Brownstone US and Canada