Several concentrations of southern New England’s most pervasive early twentieth-century urban multiple-family dwelling, the triple-decker are serried along the main thoroughfare of Broad Street and its adjacent side streets south of Public Street. The time span that embraces these groups is representative of the period of the form’s greatest popularity. While the triple-decker appears in other urban areas outside Rhode Island – Boston and Worcester, in particular – it represents in Rhode Island the densest form of urban development. Row houses, as noted in the few remaining examples (most included in these tours), were never necessary here, as they became in most other Northeast cities. In these buildings we see the same format, a three-story building with one unit per floor and the units linked vertically by front stairs at one corner of the façade and back stairs in the rear. Variety in triple-deckers comes principally in the forms of the inevitable front porch, some full width, some only partial. These were built in what was then one of several heavily Jewish neighborhoods. The developers were among the first Eastern European Jews to achieve financial success in the Providence real-estate market.
– 2003 Guide to Providence Architecture
Note: The original entry includes triple deckers on Croyland Road; Gordon Avenue; & 428-430, 432-434, 436-438, 440-442, & 448-450 Prairie Avenue.
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