We're afraid "Latest News" is a somewhat inaccurate name for this post! This report on the construction of 31 N. 9th St, and the other homes on its block, ran in the Easton Daily Express (the predecessor to the Express-Times) on Monday, February 5, 1894, when the home was newly built!
“Twenty-Two New Houses: Details of a Great Improvement
Nearing Completion on North Ninth Street”
Many new dwelling homes were erected in Easton during the past year, but nowhere has the improvement been more conspicuous than on North Ninth street, within a stone throw of Northampton street, where 22 pretty, comfortable dwellings have about completed. The homes were planned and started by the late Samuel Drake; they were continued by the estate, under the supervision of Albert Rute.
Thirteen of these new houses are on the west side of the street; the other nine are on the east side, directly opposite, and occupy a site made desirable only after thousands of loads of earth has been carted there to fill up a steep grade.
The houses all have pressed brick fronts, of a Netherlandish style of architecture, running to a peak on the third story with designs of steps or gentle slopes, each producing a pretty effect.
The houses on the west side of the street and all on the east side, with the single exception of that at the north end, have a frontage each of 16 feet six inches and a depth of 48 feet. And all are finished alike. The front doors are of the old-style “Dutch double barn-door pattern,” a novelty that is attracting no little admiration.
These doors are of oak and are separated in the centre, allowing the lower half to be closed and fastened while the upper half can be swung open during the Summer for additional ventilation, etc. In the centre of the upper portion of the door is a large plate glass, protected by a grill or iron screen.
The front door opens into a hallway of comfortable dimensions, from which an open stairway leads to the second floor. On the first floor a cosy parlor occupies the front, back of which is the dining-room. The kitchen, in the rear, is fitted up with a range, from which the ashes drop in a brick pit in the cellar.
On the second floor is a sitting-room (front), two bed-rooms, and a bath-room. The third floor is occupied by two bed-rooms and a storage room. Each home has a front and rear stairway. The homes are supplied with arrangements for hot and cold water, and during the Winter each room is heated either from the kitchen range or from furnaces in the cellars.
The interior of the dwellings are finished with oiled white pine and have white-coated walls and ceilings. Each house has a closet in every room except the parlor.
The dwelling on the north end of the east row is not quite so deep as the others, but is several feet wider and has a bay window on the north side on the first and second floors.
Each house has a front porch 8 feet deep, extending the full width of the dwelling, and a 6 foot porch the entire width of the house in the rear. The porches are all covered.
The porches in front of the houses on the east side are even with the building line of the street; those on the west side are back 12 feet from the building line and will have front grass patches leading up to the pavements.
The houses will be completed by the last of February and ready for occupancy early March.
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See the Express-Times' (much) more recent article on this home, from December 2011!
