Triple Decker - History

History

Three-deckers were most commonly built in the emerging industrial cities of the New England region of the United States between 1870 and 1920. There are large concentrations in the former industrial areas of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, northern New Jersey, and some parts of Connecticut. They can also be found in cities in New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and Virginia.

They were primarily housing for the working-class and middle-class families, often in multiple rows on narrow lots in the areas surrounding the factories. They were regarded as more livable than their brick and stone tenement and row house counterparts in other Northeastern cities, as they allowed for airflow and light on all four sides of each building, and are similar to the three-story brick apartments built in Chicago in the 1910s and 1920s.

In the textile mill city of Fall River, Massachusetts, thousands of wood-framed multi-family tenements were built by the mill owners during the boom years of the 1870s to house their workers. Many more were built by private individuals who rented their apartments to the mill workers and their families. This style of housing differed greatly from the well-spaced boardinghouses of the early 19th century built in Lowell and Lawrence or the cottages of Rhode Island.

In Worcester, Massachusetts sewer connection charges were based on street frontage, so builders favored houses with as little frontage as possible, This is one reason why three-deckers are often situated on narrow lots and are in rectangular shape, with the smaller sides at the front and the rear.

It is estimated that by 1920, the city of Boston had over 15,000 triple decker houses. Areas such as Jamaica Plain and Dorchester were popular with the emerging middle class, and became "streetcar suburbs" as transportation systems expanded from the older, core sections of the city. Typically, the affordable triple decker homes attracted live-in landlords who would collect rent from the other two apartments.

The triple-decker style apartment house is also prolific in urban areas of New Jersey especially in the cities of (and smaller cities surrounding) Newark and Jersey City but are scattered throughout working-class neighborhoods of most of North Jersey. They are typically referred to as "Bayonne Boxes" in the region as they are popular in Bayonne, New Jersey as well.