Taxonomy/Table of Contents

This guide’s taxonomy of Manhattan’s ordinary buildings is basically its table of contents as well.  It names twenty-fivecategories of Manhattan’s fabric building types, each assigned toits proper era and period.  Besides describing and discussing these types of buildings, the guide will include brief profiles of the architectural fabric of Manhattan’s neighborhoods and districts from the perspective of this classification system.  The sequence of posting new chapters will generally follow the outline below, with exceptions such that Early and Late Brownstones will be treated in the same essay, as will Early and Late Loft Buildings, Prelaw and Old Law Tenements.

Sometimes the eras and periods have exact years for their beginning or conclusion, and sometimes, when the year ends in a 0 or a 5, it is an approximation.  In each case where an exact year is assigned, the cause is a decisive legal building requirement that went into effect that year: 1879, 1901 and 1916are such years.  The exception to this rule is caused by World War 2, which abruptly ended the Prewar Era in 1942 and did not allow the beginning of the Postwar Era until 1947.  This interval was a genuine hiatus in the development of Manhattan and is treated as a near total void in its architectural history.

Sometimes the life-span of a fabric type does not exactly coincide with its assigned period.  For example, a few Postwar Superblock Complexes were actually built in the Prewar Era and during the wartime hiatus, but they are expressions of a type that only became significant in the Postwar Era.

Federal Era (1795 to 1835)  Early republican New York, represented today by only one of the several types of buildingsthat comprised its architectural fabric

Federal Dwellings: mostly tiny, middle-class, single-family houses, sometimes mixed-use

Early Victorian Period (1835 to 1875)  Decades of modest, restrained styles and ornamentation, relentless consistency of form

Late Victorian Period (1875 to 1901) Increasing displays of wealth; increasing diversity of form and size

Urban Era (1900 to 1942) Manhattan’s iconic era of explosive growth, verticality, density, with the geometric expansion of size enabled by steel frames

Early Steel Frame Buildings (1895-1916): commercial, industrial, retail buildings, over 7-stories, virtually all steel-framed; the first ‘skyscrapers’

Prewar Period (1917 to 1942)

Prewar Apartment Houses (1916 to 1942): lower middle-class to upper-class multiple-dwellings, far more numerous than Early Apartment Houses; divided between mildly historicist or Art Deco types

Setback Commercial Buildings (1916 to 1942): commercial, industrial buildings over 7-stories, the great majority with upper story “setbacks” from ground floor perimeter footprints

Postwar Era (1947 to 2000) The city of lowered expectations, declining population and design standards

Postwar Period (1947 to 1975)

Superblock Complexes (1934 to 1970): groups of identical, working-class multiple-dwellings on campuses cleared of public streets; almost all government-sponsored or assisted

Postwar Period (1947 to 1975)

Postwar Apartment Buildings: lower middle-class to uppermiddle-class minimally adorned multiple-dwellings

Postmodern Period (1975 to 2000)

Postmodern Apartment Buildings (1975 to 2000): mid-rise to hi-rise, middle-class to upper middle-class multiple-dwellingsemploying diverse styles to break with postwar modes

Postmodern Towers (1975 to 2000): very tall (over 40 stories); the majority are corporate offices, but this category includes the first purpose-built residential and mixed-use skyscrapers

Current Era (2000 to present)  A cultural shift to renewed enthusiasm for urbanism; includes recognition by the real estate industry (and government) of the value of higher-quality design and materials