Twelfth Street between Barton and Lami is a complete dichotomy. Looking first on the east side of the street heading north, we have an almost uninterrupted streetwall of Greek Revival row houses, all restored, though not all with their dormer windows rebuilt.

They were not all built at the same time; for example, there is a quadruplet above.

Then there is this odd-ball, but very beautiful house below, with the dormer offset. But look at the door lintel! I looked at it way back in June of 2015 (last photo).

I strongly suspect that this house was “upgraded” at some point. I need to look into it.

Update: Thanks to a reader’s tip, I was directed to a photograph from the Library of Congress that revealed that the house above and below was originally an additional two bays wider to the south, and was also a duplex. There were originally two front doors, and it also explains the seemingly odd off-centered placement of the roof dormer, and the split window on the second floor. The two bays to the south were demolished sometime in the late Twentieth Century, and examination of the brick on the south side of the house reveals that it was altered later than its original construction in the mid-Nineteenth Century.

Then there are some more row houses.

Then there’s an interesting break in the street wall, and an aberration; look in between the two houses on the right. There is an addition set back from the houses.

Then finally, there is the Romanesque Revival apartment building I looked at a little while ago. You can see the Franz Arzt House just across Lami Street.

Going back to the start at Barton, we’ll head back north looking at the west side of the street. As is common with Twelfth Street, there are larger parcels and grander buildings on this side, including this towering Second Empire house.

There are more houses to the north, but they all have the characteristic of sitting higher up on the lot, and looking down the hill towards the industry near the river.

This last house has a variety of different angles in its roofline, which showed off the wealth of the original owner in contrast to the more simple lines of the classical row houses on the east side of the street.