Strickland, William, Row

Built around 1815 on South Ninth Street in Philadelphia, this row of three-and-a-half-story brick houses from 215 to 227 was constructed for merchants and professionals. Benjamin Taylor, a bricklayer, sold each lot for five shillings and an annual ground rent to craftsmen in the building trades, who agreed to erect brick houses within two to four years. The first purchasers included iron mongers, carpenters, bricklayers, a blacksmith, a bootmaker and a plasterer, and the similarity of design suggests they pooled their skills to build the row. Each house had six to eight rooms, a rear piazza and a back building, with marble steps, molded cornices and six-over-six windows. The row is significant as a representative middle-class block of the years after the War of 1812. William Strickland, architect of the Second Bank of the United States and the U.S. Mint, owned and lived in 219 from 1823 to 1829. Changes to the first floors and window sash have altered the facades, but the rhythm of the row has survived.