The Old Neighborhood Part I

This unusual apartment building has the form of a double-wide house, similar in appearance to the type of single houses built nearby, with each house built with two apartments for each half, and both houses tucked beneath a large central gable.  A similar building is located nearby on Greenwood Place. 

These multi-family houses appear to be early experiments with apartment dwellings, built to the scale of single-family houses in the neighborhood.  This type, however, would be superseded by the double-decker flat type of structure, which might cost more to build per unit, but allow more light and air into each apartment.  Both these types would then be replaced by larger apartment blocks contained six – twelve apartments, such as can be seen by examples on Westcott Street corners at Avondale, Victoria and elsewhere.

Sources:

Samuel D. Gruber, “Multi-Family Houses: Toward a History,” My Central New York (Oct. 7, 2012)