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The New York [Greek Revival] row house of the 1830s and 1840s,
except for several small changes for added comfort and grandeur,
had the same [Federal style] floor plan that evolved in the 1820s—in
the basement, a dining room in the front, kitchen in the back;
on the first floor, front and back parlors, the back parlor occasionally
used as a formal dining room; and, on the upper floors, bedrooms
and servants’ rooms. . . . The height of the basement ceiling
increased from seven and seven-and-one-half feet to eight or
nine feet. The front dining room was more spacious . . . and
a high basement raised the parlor floor farther from the street
for a more impressive house. In the first-floor parlors, ceilings
rose to eleven or twelve feet and, in the large houses, reached
a spectacular fourteen feet.
The interior design of the Greek
Revival row house continued the simple [Federal] forms relieved
by occasional rich ornament as
seen on the street fronts. . . . The doors usually were the most
elaborate feature of the parlors. Each parlor door, usually mahogany
or rosewood, had one large, deeply set panel or two long and
narrow panels, impressive for the simple form and rich wood finish.
The
simplicity of the doors themselves point out the elaborate enframement.
The pilasters which support the horizontal entablature had acanthus
leaf capitals and, in many cases, an inset panel running the
full length with applied Greek Revival detail, such as the anthemion.
The horizontal entablature also displayed Greek Revival motifs,
such as the anthemion and Greek key or several rows of egg-and-dart
or dentiled molding.
Mantels were massive, severe, and in design
resembled the usual doorway enframement or the flat pilaster
and horizontal entablature.
. . . In the parlor, the ceiling decoration usually was a cornice
of simple molding or two moldings enclosing a rounded cove and
an ornate and heavy sculptured centerpiece in the center.
The handsome
ceiling plasterwork of a Greek Revival row house often was machine-made,
rather than handmade, and of papier maché or
stucco, rather than plaster. Just as factory-made cast-iron replaced
hand-wrought iron for stoop railings and areaway fences in the
1830s, steam-powered machinery mass-produced interior architectural
ornament and doors and wood moldings.
Most Greek Revival style row
houses . . . reflected the classical architectural simplicity
of past decades. But, by the late 1840s,
the advancing mid-nineteenth-century technology joined forces
with Romantic architectural ideals and a fashion-conscious citizenry
to sweep aside the last vestiges of classical simplicity and
restraint
in the New York row house.
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