Upper West Side, 102nd Street Between Riverside Drive and West End Avenue

Mary Sargent © 2008 …………………………………….. click to enlarge

Brownstone. Just what is it exactly? Wikipedia defines it as a townhouse clad in a brown Triassic sandstone, whereas American Heritage Dictionary says it can be a more general "house built or faced with brownish-red sandstone." Bob Vila thinks they are faced with brownstone and also have some design qualities in common. I know some people who call any townhouse a brownstone. What to do? I'm going to go with the very specific definition given in Metropolisapts.com. I like their orderly classification of apartments, beginning with pre and post-war. These, then, are not brownstones. You, however, may call them what you will.

By the way, I learned that brownstone is also slang for heroin and that Guns N' Roses wrote a song about heroin called Mr. Brownstone. Wikipedia again. Can I believe them?

See map.