2206–2222 Ritten-house St.
Greek Revival rowhouses, c. 1850
This block illustrates the hierarchical distribution of housing types in the district. Narrow streets were opened through the larger blocks between major streets to provide building lots for unprepossessing houses. Even these modest brick homes, however, reflect the popularity of the Greek Revival style in Antebellum Philadelphia. Pennsylvania blue marble is used for the water tables, steps, lintels and window sills, lending a touch of elegance to houses that otherwise belong to a long-standing vernacular type. Here clerks and shopkeepers, tradesmen and mechanics lived, if not side by side, then back-to-back with their well-to-do neighbors.