A Mix of Housing
by David Brussat
Some insights on our mix of housing, by Providence, Rhode Island architecture and urban planning columnist David Brussat.
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From PCJ #23, Summer 1996
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My earliest memories involve the play of multi-family housing in
primarily single-family neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. In
fact, my father, a planner, was written up by a local newspaper
for moving from suburban Wheaton, Maryland, into the District,
which in 1957 was without a doubt counter-trendy. We moved to a
nice little Tudor bungalow two doors away from busy Wisconsin
Avenue.
The first door away was a ten-story apartment tower, and I used
to wonder whether it had irked my father to have so many people
looking down on our house and yard. The principal of my
elementary school lived there, for example. I was not old enough
to mind, but for my dad it must have been comforting to know
that Mrs. Pickett and a legion of old battle axes were keeping a
watchful eye on my brother and me.
We moved from there to a house (semi-detached, actually) a
couple of miles away, four doors up from Connecticut Avenue on
Rodman Street. Connecticut is lined with old apartment buildings
which, by the time I was into my teens, were filling up with
younger working folk who parked their cars up Rodman. Other
people drove in daily from the 'burbs, parked, and walked to
Connecticut to catch the bus down to the Federal Triangle. For a
teenager sitting on the front porch, waiting for dinnertime, it
was paradise to watch them (mostly, it seemed, young ladies)
return to their cars or apartments.
Today, in Providence, I live in multi-family housing -- an old
Federal/Italianate building that sits on Benefit Street. In
Providence, few neighborhoods are without their quotient of
multi-family housing. Most of the housing in this city is old.
There are few areas without triple-deckers, townhouses, or
apartment buildings already in existence. The lots are small,
and houses are close together. There are 26 districts listed on
the National Register of Historic Places. More so here than in
most places, to integrate multi-family housing into
single-family neighborhoods means mainly to design structures
that fit into their historic context.
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