The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-11-18

Fire Escapes and Stairs in Tenement
Houses.
Every tenement house must be supplied,
under the requirements of the law, with
permanent fire escapes sufficient to furnish
an effective means Of egress for all persons
who dwell on the upper stories, and the
iron ladders which mount from story to
story on the street front Of so many of these
houses are made to meet this need. But
they do not meet it. They are an inade-
quate protection to the persons whom it
was intended to protect when the law was
made The house in Cannon street, the
scene of the latest tenement house tragedy,
was supplied with set of these iron lad
ders. Yet four persons were sutfoonted on
the fourth story, two were killed in at
tempts TO jump to the street, and only an
almost miraculous chance prevented the
additional deaths of the children who were
thrown from the third story windows.
Under the Official theory of tene-
ment house construction oil these
persons should have had an easy
and safe descent to the street. Why was
the ladder useless on this occasionp No
details will ever be known, we presume, of
what passed in the apartment on the fourth
story, since not one remains alive of those
who lived there, and so 1t cannot be said
that they tried the fire escape. They may
have been unable to get through the dense
clouds OF smoke that filled the room they
would have had to cross to reach it. But this
much is known--the iron rungs of that lad
to 60 up by it found them so. The rush Of
the flames out of the rear windows of the
apartment in which the fire began played
on the ladder and made it worthless as
means of escape. Here is fact that ought
to be taken into consideration by the au-
thorities whose duty it is to enforce the law
as to fire escapes These contrivances are
placed where they are in order to facilitate
ready and immediate access to them from
the apartments on each floor; but the fact
of their proximity to the windows-that is,
to one of the loopholes through which the
fame rushes in every fre-tends to prevent
access to them and to make them useless
by heating the iron. Other more effective
plans must be tried to prevent these hor-
rible deaths, and one of the simplest and
cheapest would be to supply our Fire De-
partment with effective movable fire es-
capes. These are in regular use in London.
But the best plan is to compel the adoption
of special structure for staircases in tene-
ment houses. All stairways in such houses
should be constructed of stone or brick.
This should be made by law as indispens-
able as brick or stone for chmneys.
1t is q great many years since the
erection Of frame houses in this city
was forbidden by law, but houses are
now but little less combustible than they
were before that change, because that law
has changed only the material Of the shell
OF every fabric. All the beams, floors,
joiner's work and stairways are of the most
highly infammable material. These once
fairly fired the whole interior of house
will burn out in few hours, and the walls
will not OF themselves arrest the progress
of the fire to the next house. Therefore
the purpose for which that law was made is
not accomplished by its requirements and
il is time to take further step in COM
polling the use of incombustible material
This step should be with regard to stair
ways, as suggested. The Building Depart
ment should be forbidden to approve of the
plans for any new house to be used as o
tenement unless the plans include capa-
cious main stairway to be built of stone or
brick, but not of iron.
steam fm the Pilot Service.
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