Some dream of owning a penthouse in a towering skyscraper, others of a massive pre-war suite of rooms. But for the real romantic it seems the most alluring (and elusive) piece of New York real estate for decades now has been an actual house—a row house to be precise.

Be it brownstone or brick, and whether it was Gothic Revival, Italianate, Federal, Greek Revival, or Second Empire, nearly forty years ago, the classic row house received a long overdue love letter. Now, that love letter has been updated with a new edition of Charles Lockwood and Patrick W Ciccone's Bricks & Brownstone: The New York Row House published by Rizzoli. It now includes new chapters from Jonathan D. Taylor and color photographs from Dylan Chandler.

The beautiful but also fantastically informative (A Washington Post critic once referred to now-beloved brownstones as "dingy and drab ... cheap lodgings of the most somber sort") tome is the latest selection for our series on fabulous new travel-related coffee table books, Just Booked. Bricks & Brownstone is filled with wonderful photographs not only of the rowhouses that remain today, but also fantastically detailed close-ups of exterior and interior decorations as well as historical photographs from when they were first erected.

Bricks & Brownstone: The New York Row House by Charles Lockwood & Patrick W. Ciccone with Jonathan D. Taylor. Published by Rizzoli. (At Rizzoli for $85)