Got Alleys?

Alleys are underrated. Along with much of urbanity, alleys fell out of favor in the post-war era, becoming associated with phrases like, “I wouldn’t want to run into that guy in a dark alley.” But in the late 20th century, as we began returning to cities and urban design, we rediscovered why we built them in the first place. New Urbanist town planners have been particularly keen on reintroducing alleys into the development vernacular. Peter Calthorpe writes:

In areas where walking is to be encouraged, streets lined with garages are undesirable. Alleys provide an opportunity to put the garage in the rear, allowing the more “social” aspects of the home to front the street. Streets lined with porches, entries and living spaces are safer because of this visual surveillance.

But how did we get to this point, when alleys are still sort of taboo and must be defended? Why did alleys pop up in the first place? And why do some cities have alleys and others don’t? The answer is, of course, history.

The Pre-Alley Period

Elfreth's Alley: not an alley. Photo: C. Ridgeway

Alleys are a North American invention. Medieval cities in Europe and elsewhere in the Old World have narrow streets and passageways that the non-planner-geek may deem as alleys, but most are not. They are simply narrow streets, and buildings have front entrances facing them. The oldest sections of early North American cities are similarly devoid of alleys. So-called Elfreth’s Alley in Philadelphia, the oldest residential street in the US, is not actually an alley. Its homes face the street, which just happens to be a very skinny street. Nor will you find alleys in the oldest parts of New York, Boston or Quebec City - just more narrow streets. Most people living in 17th and 18th century towns walked for their daily business. Few townspeople were wealthy enough to own horses and carriages, let alone outbuildings behind their homes to store them. Alleys were simply not needed.

The Earliest Alleys

Alleys began to emerge in the late 18th century, often as intentional components of planned, platted towns or neighborhoods. The 1767 plan for Emmaus, PA (written in the German spoken by its Moravian settlers) states that, “there is to be between every 4 lots an alley 12 ft. in width.” Pierre L’Enfant’s 1791 plan for Washington, DC also included alleys between the gridded and radial streets of our capitol.

But the golden age of the alley came later, in the 19th century, and especially west of the Appalachians. What changed? Based on my limited research, I believe two main factors were at play: more deliberate town planning, and the proliferation of carriage houses.

The Wild But Orderly West 

Unlike during the Colonial period - when towns developed haphazardly around ports and trading posts, with streets following Native trails and cow paths - the settlement of the American and Canadian West was more deliberate. In the US, Thomas Jefferson established the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) in 1787, dividing land into orderly squares of townships and sections, and making them available to settlers. Canada established a similar, but much later, version called the Dominion Land Survey (DLS) in 1871.

Chicago: a city of alleys. Photo: leopardo.com

Those in the business of establishing towns (often industrial enterprises or railroad companies) were usually required to draft and record plat plans of those towns. As we can see today in the Midwest and West, most civil engineers chose grid-based town layouts that were easy to survey, resulted in sensible rectangular lots, and nested well within the larger squares of the PLSS or DLS. On a finer grain, engineers determined the width and spacing of streets, and often bisected blocks with alleys 10 to 20 feet wide. You can see the result in almost any Midwestern town, from tiny burgs like Moline, Kansas, to bustling Chicago, arguably the “alleyest” city in America. Canada followed suit, platting neighborhoods with laneways (the Canuck term for alleys) from Toronto to Vancouver.  But who would use these alleys?

Carriage Houses for Everyone

Historic preservation author Theodore Corbett traces alleys to the increased ownership of horses and carriages in 19th century America. This was largely due to rising wealth and increased travel demand in a rapidly expanding country. Rather than storing horses and carriages in barns at the edge of town, it made increasing sense to store them closer to home in carriage houses. But in a reflection of 19th century mores and aesthetics, carriage houses (with their messy horses) were placed out of sight, behind the primary house, and facing an alley. As the Encyclopedia of Chicago put it, “In middle-class areas, the street represented the respectable front, while the alley saw the servants and suppliers do the dirty work.” Many carriage houses also had apartments, or were converted to residences altogether, to meet the rising demand for affordable worker housing during the Industrial Revolution.

Then came the automobile, itself also well-suited for carriage house storage. Except then we started calling them garages. As automobiles gained affordability and popularity in the early 20th century, so did garages. But homebuilders and developers resisted the urge to place garages front-and-center on residential properties. They continued to place them behind houses, if not facing an alley, then at least set back considerably from the front lot line (most old Portland neighborhoods have the latter arrangement.)

The Demise of Alleys

Alleys fell out of favor after World War II, virtually disappearing from new development. A double-edged sword of auto-oriented subdivisions and urban decay drastically reduced both the perceived need and desirability of alleys. A booming middle class bought new cars and new houses in sprawling suburbs. Unlike the olden days, home garages were built to be convenient, not aesthetically pleasing. They were placed in the front of the house for easy street access - sometimes closer to the street than the home’s front door. Alleys were therefore obsolete, and worse, increasingly associated with the filth and squalor of decaying inner cities. We would not see alleys again until the New Urbanism movement of the 1980s and 90s. Even today they remain on the fringe of contemporary development practices. And that’s a shame! 

A Case for Alleys

Accessory dwelling unit over alley-facing garage,
Lincoln City, OR. Photo: author

I tend to agree with Peter Calthorpe and other New Urbanists. Alleys, by separating out the utilitarian aspects of modern living (garages, trash collection, electric and cable wiring), bring the dignified, lived-in portions of our homes to the forefront. The benefits go beyond just aesthetics and “eyes on the street.” Alleys also eliminate the need for driveways, which opens up more on-street parking for visitors, and lessens the number of car-pedestrian conflicts on sidewalks. Alleys allow house fronts to be graced with porches and patios instead of blank garage doors, promoting social interaction and neighborliness (if that’s your thing). Finally, alley-facing garages can accommodate accessory dwelling units on the second floor, a non-intrusive way of increasing residential density in single-family neighborhoods.

Of course, if we didn’t have garages, we wouldn’t need alleys or driveways in the first place. But even as we become more urban as a population, the average, middle-class American or Canadian family has stuff - cars, bicycles, kayaks, lawnmowers, power tools - for which we demand storage. If we insist on having garages, why not place them  along alleys in the back, instead of cluttering the public viewshed along our neighborhood streets. 

Bonus: Check out my Google map of Portland alleys. Portland is mostly sans alleys, but a handful of early 20th century neighborhoods do have them, including Ladd’s Addition, Foster-Powell and Boise.

Sources

Calthorpe, Peter. The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream. Princeton Architectural Press, 1993.

Conzen, Michael P. Alleys. The Encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago Historical Society, 2005.

Corbett, Theodore. The Alley: A Backstreet History of New York’s Communities. New York Folklore Society, 2002.

Murtagh, William J. Moravian Architecture and Town Planning. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998.

National Atlas: The Public Land Survey System. US Department of the Interior, 2012.