3rd Street Patterns

This is another of those odd patterns that leaps out at one, once one notices it. The first photo below is from 3rd Street between 6th & 7th Avenues, north side; most of the street is lined with these monumental 8-family apartment houses. The buildings are 4 stories high, two apartments per floor, walkups; the gently-bayed facades create a pleasing rhythm as the buildings march down the hill toward 6th Avenue:

3rd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, north side; unprotected

Below is a closer view of one of these buildings from the south side of the same block. The doorway is protected by a flat entablature, flanked by columns. The central windows above the doorway light the interior staircase. First above the doorway is a rounded window with "Greek Ear" enframement; next up has a Gothic-style pointed arch; the window above that is a "flattened segmental" arch, rounded but flattened at the same time (there is probably a technical term for this, unknown to me):

458 3rd Street - unprotected

Meanwhile, just around the corner in 6th Avenue, toward 2nd Street, one finds nearly identical buildings... except 4-family, not 8-family, with windows that are "the same yet different". Note the identical doorways, flat entablature flanked by columns, and similarities in the window treatment above: Gothic-style pointed arch, with "flattened segmental" above that:

315-317 6th Avenue - unprotected

The similarities are so close as to suggest they might have come from the same hand.