{"nrhp_refnum":"98000725","name":"Brown, W.C., Apartment Building","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"311-317 E. 7th St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Winston-Salem","county":"Forsyth County","state":"NC","lat":36.102608675000056,"lon":-80.24077699899993,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1998-06-26","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Community Planning and Development","Black","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story brick-veneered apartment building with four flats at 311-317 East Seventh Street in Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina, built around 1941 (possibly 1942) for the Brown family as rental housing for African-American families.","why_significant":"It is one of the rare surviving examples of the 'Y-stair' brick apartment type built in Winston-Salem's African-American neighborhoods in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It reflects the growth of the Depot Street neighborhood around the tobacco factories and the development of the city's African-American community. It also retains high architectural integrity as a little-changed example of this local building type.","narrative":"Built around 1941 on the north side of East Seventh Street in Winston-Salem, this two-story brick apartment building holds four rental flats. Its most recognizable feature is a central exterior wooden staircase that divides into two flights, forming a Y shape and giving each apartment its own porch. Full-height square brick posts support the front porches beneath a hipped metal roof. The building replaced earlier frame houses on land inherited by the Brown family, whose members had ties to tobacco, insurance, drug and clothing businesses. It was built as housing for African-American families, including workers at the nearby R.J. Reynolds tobacco factories, at a time when the Depot Street neighborhood was thriving. The design is believed to have been developed by a local construction company and is almost identical to an apartment building on Chestnut Street. Few such Y-stair buildings survive. It was listed for its role in African-American community development and as a little-changed example of its type.","period_of_significance":"ca. 1941-1948","architect_builder":"Unknown (design believed to have been developed locally by Jack Covington of Wilson-Covington Construction Company)","architectural_style":"Craftsman","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Building in fair condition with high exterior integrity; the downstairs east apartment is vacant and boarded up, while other apartments are occupied.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:57:49.702472-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/27/7178/47717827/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/98000725.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47717827","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.C._Brown_Apartment_Building","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19460696"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/forsyth-county/brown-w-c-apartment-building-98000725/"}