brick-front commercial building
The brick-front store was built as a building or in groups with party walls up to a block in length. In vernacular design, it was the most popular storefront for the longest time. Such buildings varied in height from one to three stories, but their plans were quite similar. Two- and three-story structures had ground-level store facilities, with storage or an apartment living space on the second or third floor. Access was from the street through a separate entrance or through the store. Single-story buildings offered no space for store owners or renters to live in, and they were not often built alone, but rather as a series of stores along a portion of a block tied together by cornices or other horizontal elements… Photo from Great Barrington, Massachusetts, 2017. (Gottfried & Jennings, 1985)