East Village residents aren't thrilled about the impending Karl Fischer-developed residential tower going up at 427 East 12th Street, but there's a temporary silver lining: the reveal of one of New York's architectural idiosyncrasies, the backhouse. This almost-secret class of buildings is rarely visible to the streetwalking public, a secondary structure usually hidden behind tenement buildings (or, in historically wealthy areas, a carriage house behind a mansion). Off The Grid digs up the street plan for the the pair of rowhouses on East 12th Street and their matching backhouses, all built in 1852, along with supporting examples of the typology in the West Village. And for more of New York's hidden-in-plain-sight architecture, we've got a mews map right this way.
· The Backstory on Backhouses [Off the Grid]
· 427 East 12th Street coverage [Curbed]
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