Triple Decker

Triple Decker

A three-story apartment building is often called a triple-decker or three-decker in the USA. These buildings are typically of light-framed, wood construction, where each floor usually consists of a single apartment, although two apartments per floor is not uncommon.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, tens of thousands of triple-deckers were constructed, mostly in the New England region of the United States, as an economical means of housing the thousands of newly arrived immigrant workers who filled the factories of the area. The economics of the triple-decker are simple: the cost of the land, basement and roof are spread among three or six apartments, which typically have identical floor plans. The triple-decker apartment house was seen as an alternative to the more tightly congested row-housing built in other Northeastern cities of United States during this period, such as in Brooklyn and Philadelphia.