Brownstone
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Brownstone is a brown Triassic sandstone which was once a popular building material. The term is also understood to be a terrace or rowhouse clad in this material.
History
While brownstone is often popularly associated in the United States of America with New York City, the stone was used widely around the world before losing popularity around 1900 in part due to rapid failures of carved surface details in the weathering process. The quarries used for the early brownstones of New York City were in New Jersey, and in the Connecticut River area. Brownstone with qualities approaching granite is currently being imported from Germany.
The Avondale section of Nutley, New Jersey, was home to one such quarry. Jobs at the quarry supported a sizeable portion of the Italian and Irish immigrants in Nutley at the turn of the century. This quarry was later home to the Nutley Velodrome.
Brownstone dwellings
In Boston and New York City, a "brownstone" is understood to be a terrace or 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 fictitional 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.
See also
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.