New England might not have a regional cuisine to speak of, nor a body of literature or a genre of music to call its own. But the region's residential architecture is as distinctive as it gets.

And standing most distinct — in my eyes at least — is the triple-decker, with its flat roof and open porches. To me, it is the quintessential Manchester home as it can be seen across the city, but is most prevalent in the Center City and on the West Side:

But it would appear our humble triple-decker is in trouble.

According to a recent New York Times article, New England’s triple-deckers are “under siege” as they “are being foreclosed on at disproportionate rates, left to decay and even razed.”

For generations, the article notes, triple-deckers have provided the working class with spacious and affordable places to live. Like other mill towns across the region, triple-deckers here in Manchester appealed particularly to immigrant workers in the city’s mills.

“They were a clear step up from tenement blocks, having private bathrooms and windows on every side.

Best of all, three-deckers put homeownership within reach of the working class. Buyers could live in one unit and rent out the others, assuring they could afford payments and upkeep for years to come.”

But in recent years, the Times says, triple-deckers have attracted another type of buyer: the investor.

“For many people, they’re a form of business,” said Timothy M. Warren Jr., chief executive of the Warren Group in Boston, which tracks real estate transactions. “There are absentee landlords, they take the risk, and if it doesn’t work, they walk.”

This is certainly true here in Manchester, where during the real eastate boom years in the early and mid part of this decade, investors were drawn in my rapidly rising property values and rising rents. Seeing dollar signs, many investors overextended themselves. Obtaining adjustable rate mortgages, they were able to cover their payments as long as high rents could be had, their buildings remained fully occupied and their interest rates were low. But once the market took a nose dive and interest rates rose, their trouble began.

Part of the problem is that many absentee landlords saw triple-deckers and other multi-family properties as mere monetary investments from which they could sit back and collect a substantial return on their investments. They ignored the fact that their investments are also people’s homes, as well as integral parts of neighborhoods.

One such negligent landlord is Syed Kazi, owner of three city multifamily homes, one of which was recently burned to the ground, and all of which have received numerous code violations in recent years. All are currently on the market and one, a triple-decker at 53 West St., is currently in foreclosure. Kazi has allegedly fled the country.

David Cornell, Chairman of the Manchester Board of Assessors, told me that like Boston, Worcester and Providence, Manchester, too, is experiencing a number of foreclosures in triple-deckers.

Cornell that the city as around 400 flat-roofed triple-deckers. He said a number of these are now vacant and uninhabitable.

There’s no denying that triple-decker prices are coming down, and coming down more than their single family counterparts. For example, this triple-decker at 169 Pine St. is appraised (2005 appraisal) at $349,200. It’s now on the market for $249,900.

If there’s any silver lining to this foreclosure crisis, particularly with regard to triple-deckers, it’s that with prices finally coming back down to — or at least approaching — earth, there’s more of a chance that these gems will once again become homes to owner occupants and not just investments to absentee, negligent landlords.