When I was 20, all I wanted was to live in an apartment above a bookstore on a block like this. What I did not then understand was that this block typology (mixed use, small-scale multifamily) was a stunning triumph of pre-war urbanism. Only later did I realize how thoroughly such blocks were dismantled by postwar zoning regimes and car-centric planning, which nearly rendered this way of building, and living, extinct.