Rowhouses at 322-344 East 69th Street

Twelve brownstone-fronted row houses on the south side of East 69th Street, between First and Second Avenues in Manhattan, make up this small group of single-family homes. Built in 1879-80 in the Neo-Grec style, each is three stories plus a basement, with a high stoop, double-doored entrance, rusticated base, segmental-arched windows and a galvanized-iron cornice with brackets. Jacob Valentine designed Nos. 322-332 and William R. Smith designed Nos. 334-344, both for speculative builder James E. Ray. The second row is somewhat more ornate, with fuller enframements around doors and windows. Construction boomed on the Upper East Side after the Third Avenue El opened in 1878, and most houses of the period were built by speculators for middle-class buyers. Few comparable Neo-Grec rows survive. These houses remain largely as built, apart from replaced railings, some later doors and windows, and one basement garage, and they stand among altered buildings and modern high-rises.