Building activity has occurred throughout the history of the West End, but it has been most heavily concentrated between the years 1900 and 1929. While the surviving pre-1900 buildings are congregated along N. Spring, Fifth, Summit and Fourth Streets, structures representative of the subsequent building periods are mixed throughout the district. There does appear to be a tendency, however, for the oldest buildings to be located along the highest elevations, with later development filling in the gaps and continuing along the lower-lying streets.
| Distribution: | Quantity: | Date Range: |
|---|---|---|
| 4% | 23 Structures | Prior to 1900 |
| 33% | 202 Structures | 1900-1917 |
| 34% | 206 Structures | 1918-1929 |
| 4% | 27 Structures | 1930-1945 |
| 22% | 131 Structures | After 1945 |
[Condition]
The general condition of the buildings in the West End is good. Since the late 1960’s many have been sensitively rehabilitated or restored, while others never fell into disrepair in the first place. Alterations have most frequently involved the addition of new siding (see Inventory List for specifics), but in most cases the alterations, siding or otherwise, have not destroyed the significance of the buildings and therefore the district as a whole has retained a large degree of architectural integrity.
[Non Contributing]
Of the 260 noncontributing resources in the district, relatively few are actual intrusions. Most are either post 1930 outbuildings or residential structures built after the district’s primary period of significance which might simply be labeled “fill”. Good examples are the rows of small post WWII houses along Pilot View and Sixth Streets, the beautifully-detailed YWCA (built in 1942), the John W. Pack House which is the only example of the Art Moderne style in the West End, and the 1982 Blackwell-Chapman House, a modern dwelling which nevertheless relates well to the West End in scale, form, material, and site placement.
Intrusions consist primarily of unsympathetically designed and placed two-story motel-like apartment buildings such as the Summit Square Apartments, the Brookshill Apartments, the three-story West Hill Apartments, and the Apartments at 123 Piedmont Avenue. Other types of intrusions include the one-story brick veneer office building at 854 W. Fifth Street with its front-facing kicked gable roof and front parking lot which looks as if it belongs on “franchise row” and the massive YMCA, erected in 1976 and enlarged in 1985. Because the intrusions are not great in number and are scattered, they have not destroyed the West End’s ability to convey its architectural and historical significance.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination (1987)