Today in the Westcott Neighborhood a large number of houses and even a great majority on many streets, are either multi-family dwellings or are rented to groups of students or other non-related individuals. This was not always the case. When first developed, most of the East Side was planned as an area of single family homes. Even the wood-frame houses for what we now call the working class, were free standing and were likely to have a patch of lawn and yard for space, air, greenery and a garden. This house is evidence of attempts to provide multi-family housing on single lots in the late 19th century.
The house appears to have been built in 1890s; based on location, style, construction details, and materials. This is a double-wide house, similar in appearance to the type of single houses built nearby, and it was built with two apartments for each half. This is an early experiment with multiple-family dwellings built to the scale of single-family houses in the neighborhood. another examples can be seen at 520-526 Columbus Avenue. The type, however, would be superseded by a more integrated and rectangular apartment block-type, usually of 4-8 apartments. These new buildings which began to appear on corner lots around 1910, were distinctly different in appearance than many of the single family houses nearby. Examples can be seen on Westcott Street corners at 401-405 Avondale and elsewhere.
Sources:
Samuel D. Gruber, 2012. “Multi-Family Houses: Toward a History,” My Central New York (Oct. 7, 2012)