1880s townhouses, West End, Portland Maine

The West End is very different in look and feel to the neighborhoods on the other side of downtown: Munjoy Hill and the Eastern Promenade. The West End is mostly built of brick, and very often the terraced streets are lined with tall, narrow buildings which tend to give the 'hood a tall, narrow and rather formal feel. It's the Back Bay of Portland. The eastern side of town overlooks Casco Bay and has a more wide-open and windblown feel: it is also built mostly of wood. The West End is more solid and stately; it's really the only residential neighborhood in Maine that feels distinctively urban, in a 19th century style. Most other city neighborhoods in Portland, Bangor, Lewiston are collections of the same wood-clad types of buildings you see in Maine's factory towns and rural townships.