The most architectural dwelling-house quarter of Philadelphia proper is the south-western. Walnut Street here exhibits one continuous row of handsome and costly facades, mostly of brownstone, marble, or of other kinds of stone. In adjoining streets brick predominates, and side by side with structures in the older Philadelphia manner—the red brick varied only by sills and steps of white marble—rise brick dwellings with project ing bays and oriels, with quaint or picturesque porches and loggias, with dressings of stone and terra-cotta, with tile roofs and ornamental tiling on the walls, and with curious, and often effective, carving in stone. Farther northward, Spring Garden and North Broad Streets have many fine houses, and South Broad Street is not behindhancl. In many of the north western portions of the city, as well as to a considerable extent in the western and southern, the architects have invested with the charm of some variety the numerous semi-detached houses and still more abundant continuous terraces of those quarters. In the more modern parts the whole street is not of one pattern: each block, at least, differs from the next; and the attempt is made to diversify even the block by some accen tuation of the end and central houses.
New York City has probably for ever abandoned its regulation front of brownstone, and has entirely—at least, in its better buildings—cast aside the American vernacular. A great change has taken place, and variety and picturesqueness have become the prominent characteristics of a New York residence-street. In the greater part of these new houses, classic— or, rather, Free Classic—motives predominate. The horizontal lines are emphasized, the perpendicular are subordinate, but the details are derived from almost every phase of the round-arched, lintelled, and even pointed, styles. Gothic has been least used, and, unless liberally mingled with Renaissance, has been least successful; yet it has been attempted in sev eral instances. Some of the finest modern mansions belong to the early phases of the Renaissance—the Renaissance as distinguished from the Pal ladian and baroque phases which succeeded it—the Renaissance of the cinquecen/o in Italy and of Francois I. in France.
No description of New York City dwellings can avoid mention of the Vanderbilt houses, some of which are exceedingly fine, though the res idences built for W. H. Vanderbilt, and consisting of two blocks of equal size and similar detail, devoid of any prominent architectural feature, cannot be accounted the best. One of the most noteworthy houses to be found in any city is that of W. K. Vanderbilt (pi. 66, fig. 2). This
is a rectangular pile broken in front by a projection containing the entrance, and continued toward the rear by a portion one storey lower. The style chosen is the latest phase of French Gothic as exhibited at the Palais de Justice at Rouen. The projecting centre contains a grand entrance with deeply-recessed and moulded jambs, having above it a bal cony enclosed beneath a deeply-recessed ornate arch. Upon the south front there are a three-sided bay and a semicircular oriel-window, both highly decorated. These ornamental features are set off by broad plain surfaces. The dormers or window-gables are rich and the sky-line is good, while a turret which rises to the left of the principal entrance adds to its importance. The large dormer over the entrance, which has flying buttresses and pinnacles carried on corbels, is the least satisfactory feature. Two mansions belonging to other members of the Vanderbilt family are in the French Renaissance, free from the trace of Gothic observable in the dwelling last described, and are constructed of brownstone and red brick instead of being in one material. The disposition of the circular angle-bays, judiciously intermixed with square and angular projections, gives to these houses relief and renders them both conspicuous and effective. The residence of Cornelius Vanderbilt is another French Renaissance structure, and the composition of the whole is a most pleasing one.
The Tiffany House is the climax of singularity in outline, members, and color. The balcony which spans the great recess in front, the bold semicircular arch of the broad carriage-entrance which leads into the inte rior court, and the recessed balcony at the west end are highly picturesque and satisfactory features. Except a small amount of bluestone, the entire exterior is of brick of a peculiar brown tint, giving a unique effect. The chimneys consist of attached cylinders. The entrances to the dwelling open into the carriage-way, in French fashion, and a stone staircase and balconette underneath and upon the right side of the entrance-archway give access to a smaller front door. These few examples must suffice us; yet New York City has hundreds of houses which, though as a rule smaller than the Vanderbilt houses, are well worthy of attentive study. The ordinary twenty-five foot lot on the principal avenues as well as in many other streets in their vicinity has been made the theatre of an endless change of scene, producing an ensemble totally unlike the monotonous magnificence of Paris or Berlin and unlike the conventional brownstone fronts of the New York of twelve years ago.