Brownstone

The stone from quarries located in Portland, Connecticut and nearby localities was used in a number of landmark buildings in Chicago, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, New Haven, Hartford, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.

Smaller concentrations exist in parts of Bay Ridge, Williamsburg, Bushwick, Greenpoint, and Prospect Lefferts Gardens.

A typical architectural detail of brownstones in and around New York City is the stoop, a steep staircase rising from the street to the entrance on what amounts to almost the second-floor level.

[citation needed] Back Bay, Boston, is known for its Victorian brownstone homes – considered some of the best-preserved examples of 19th-century urban design in the United States.

[citation needed] Brownstone was prized by tombstone carvers in southern New England and the Mid Atlantic region during the Colonial era.

Brownstone was deemed "not really much good as a building material" by Vincent Scully, professor emeritus of the history of art at Yale University.

[12] Brownstone was popular because it is unusually easy to carve and quarry, but these qualities also made houses clad in it susceptible to weathering and damage over time.