South Boston triple-deckers are seen in foreground with the downtown Boston skyline looming in back Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2003. They are New England's triple-deckers and a century after their invention at the hands of immigrant carpenters, speculators and craftsmen, they remain an enduring form of housing like Philadelphia's row houses, New Orlean's shotgun houses and San Francisco's Victorian "painted ladies." Elise Amendola AP/File