Were classic New York fire escapes bolted on long after the buildings were finished, or were they designed this way?
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They’ve been required since 1867, so for most buildings probably the latter.
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there's actually a very interesting episode of 99pi about it: 99percentinvisible.org/episode/good-e
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Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Fun fact: they were never a very good fire safety device. The 99% episode linked is great!
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After. New York had a lot of "great fires of \(year)". Most were retrofit additions. bsj.iccsafe.org/2010Dec/featur
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They were obviously retrofitted to allow for for better chase scenes in movies/TV shows.