NYC apartments

The apartment I lived in during college required maintenance enter the premises every month to change the air filters and check all the smoke detectors. I asked the office why I couldn't just do it myself and they were very blunt with me. Turns out that based on decades of industry experience there was simply no reason to trust tenants would do the tasks themselves. Sad isn't it?

 

Notice any difference?

Space.

There are several reasons why most New York apartment buildings don't have balconies.

The first reason is of course, money. But that manifests itself in different ways. Building and maintaining balconies costs money. We now have what's called expanded Local Law 11 which requires all balconies and railings to be inspected (along with facades) every 5 years - naturally because one collapsed a few years ago, killing a woman. Also, because of New York's limited space (also due to money because limited space makes land expensive) any balcony space takes away from living space. Also, most NYC buildings are old and the technology to building balconies for everyone safely is not. Now it's become a fad for the super rich buildings in Manhattan to have ridiculously extravagant balconies. But there are so many times that I walk around the city and see balconies where not a soul is out there because - there's nothing to see. There's no reason to be out there. You might be looking at a building across the street from the third floor. So what? If you're in Manhattan - or the Bronx - it might be dirty, smelly and noisy too. Do you think it's a good idea to wasted millions or billions building balconies so just in case there's a fire there's somewhere to run? That's basically crazy.

And this is coming from one of the very few (or maybe the only) regular poster here who lives in NYC and has a balcony - and has a spectacular view I might add. Unless the weather is prohibitive I am out on the balcony for at least a short time almost every day. That's why I'm not on the second floor.

 

They built these monstrosities to house as many impoverished or low-income people as humanly possible so they could keep as many individuals and families from homelessness. A 19 story building with balconies means that they have to decrease the size of the apartments, and maybe you have to reduce 40 units. Now multiply that by a thousand buildings with similar design plans in the city, and you have 20-40k residents that have no access to low-rent apartments. The crucial problem with cities is that they are unsustainable and unhealthy, crowded environmental models. In the Bronx, you have a minority community of immigrants and low-class citizens that do not, cannot, care about maintaining the buildings, so you have fire alarms that go off at these buildings for all sorts of reasons. It goes off so many times that nobody cares about it. That's what killed these people.

Also, it doesn't help that vaccine mandates and covid isolation policies kept the FDNY understaffed and overworked. Many firefighters are still sick at home waiting for those Covid-19 tests Biden promised would come in the mail. lol. It's not like this is the first deadly fire that's killed people in major cities and towns that were short staffed cause of the Biden crises. The FDNY Union Boss said it would happen.

"Several residents on Sunday said that fire alarms were always going off but residents ignored them as they believed they were faulty."
https://www.ibtimes.sg/what-caused-...rked-blaze-choking-people-death-sitting-62171

"Residents in the Bronx apartment building that caught fire January 9, 2022, said the fire alarms would frequently go off and they ignored the initial warning because they thought the smoke detectors were a false alarm."

"Luis Rosa lived on the 13th-floor and said he also believed it was another false alarm, but once he opened the door of his apartment to see what was going on, all he saw was smoke."

"The flames damaged only a small part of the building, but smoke poured through the apartment's open door and turned stairwells—the only method of escape in a building too tall for fire escapes—into dark, ash-choked death traps."
https://www.newsweek.com/bronx-buil...off-ignored-sound-before-deadly-blaze-1667613

 

Didn’t look like they were in the ghetto, they were near Times Square, a very high dollar district.

 

Many of those buildings are not old enough to have been built before balconies were the norm
Not sure where you are getting that info, but it is invalid.

 

Because space is at a premium and people spend less actual time on balconies? It's got to be about money.

 

FYI, on the left of the image, Eiffel Tower. You may want to use another photo

 

No, I thought this building was in the Bronx, but, according to some, in a part of it characterized by 'shoe-box' apartments that rent for $2,000 per month. I'm just trying to find out who is actually PAYING for all this....

 

To answer all the questions regarding balconies.

It is illegal to extend a balcony beyond the lot line or property line. As such, in order to create a balcony, which is already far more expensive than a wall with a window, you must lose available floor space to accomodate it.

With the cost of land and buildable area in NYC, my guess is they can get more money per square foot for interior apartment space than space with a balcony.

 

Wouldn't it be better to live in Froggy Hollow, Mississippi than to live in one of those crappy, crime-ridden 'cabinet-apartments' in a miserable, fugged-up place like New York City...?

 

You think inner city public housing tower blocks are out in the country? How did you manage to come up with that without drugs?

Meantime, I've proferred pics of balconied urban public housing apartments from all over the world. From Asia to Africa to Germany to Florida to Melbourne.

 

It's can't be about IQ .. since the same 'standard' of people can be trusted with balconies in every other nation on earth.

There has to be something else.

 

You have obviously never been to NYC. BTW, I am about 25 miles next to the ocean, I most certainly prefer that than MS.

 

Did anyone - I mean anyone - spend even a few seconds on Google before weighing in on this?

https://www.brickunderground.com/re...ers-noise-trash-weather-storage-furniture?amp

 

1) Crime exists everywhere there are poor people, yet they can still be trusted with balconies.

2) What design issues? If they can be built in Miami (and London, and Singapore, and etc etc) why can't they be built in NYC?

3) Those features of low income households are common in all the places balconied public housing exists. Again, what is different about New Yorkers? What feature in them means they're so "retarded" that they can't be trusted with a freaking balcony? I know you're not trying to suggest that it's all about BBQ's.

 

Reminds me of Judge Dredd movie.. Breeding ground for all sorts of things!

I'm gonna stick with

 

Heating fault.

 

Sure, but in this case it wasn't the fire which killed people - it was the smoke they couldn't escape. Because they don't have balconies.

 

That city pic is actually in my country. I stay well away from such places, and spend as much time as possible in places like your second pic!

 

My guess is to tempting! A couple years of that horseshit and I'd take the express route

 

Building codes didn’t allow them (or counted them as floor space - I’m not sure which) before 1961.

 

Build barrier

 

1) Space can't be the issue. These towers are crammed together like sardines in a can, but every apartment has a balcony.

2) If public housing towers can be built with balconies in third world nations, and in every other nation, why would the richest city in the richest nation on earth not be able to pay for them?

3) Balconies are designed in. They cannot take floor space if floor space is added to compensate. What you're suggesting is illogical.

4) Balconies aren't provided in case of fires - they're provided because the quality of life of the resident is greatly improved. They are hugely important to mental and physical wellbeing.

 

So all these towers were built before 1961?

 

Not all. But they aren’t universally popular.

https://www.brickunderground.com/re...ers-noise-trash-weather-storage-furniture?amp