| Brownstone, like all sandstone, is a soft building material,
but when properly cut and laid it does not deteriorate any more
than any other building stone. . . . However, to last brownstone
must be cut across the grain and laid ashlar, i.e., with the
grain running perpendicular to the building façade. .
. . Although this distinction about the grain of the stone, in
the words of one architect, “seems to the careless reader
a merely whimsical objection,” it “is in truth a
very important matter . . .” When cut and laid with the
grain, brownstone crumbles and scales, because water seeps into
the exposed pores of the thin brownstone blocks and, upon freezing,
expands and splits the stone into large, thin sheets. Had the
stone been cut and laid across the grain in the first place,
the deterioration of most brownstone fronts, then and now, would
be minimal. Although the fashion for brownstone emerged in the
late 1840s, ordinary brick was an acceptable material for row
house fronts
until the eve of the Civil War. After that, the brick front was
relegated to the modest middle class and working-men’s dwellings,
which have disappeared largely from Manhattan but remain in sizable
numbers in several areas of Brooklyn. “Houses built of stone,
or having stone fronts, are the only kind which meet with favor
from the moneyed portion of our community,” declared one
newspaper in the 1860s. “Brick is getting too common for
first-class fashionable circles, and are left to be occupied by
the more humble of the people.”
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