How New York Got Its Fire Escapes

21 May 2026 11:58 354K views 0 logs

+ Log this video YouTube ↗

Popular reviews

No reviews yet.Watched it? Say something.

More from Stewart Hicks

How Brutalist Buildings Trick You With Concrete

How Polling Places Can Sway Elections

Dystopias: Real Ones vs. the Movies

Why Everything We Build is Flat

Ratings

–

0 ratings

½★★★★★

About

Watch the Anatomy of the Nokia 3310: https://nebula.tv/videos/realengineering-the-anatomy-of-the-nokia-3310?ref=stewarthicks

Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/stewarthicks

Why is New York covered in fire escapes, while Chicago — a city practically synonymous with burning down — has so few of them?

It turns out these two cities learned very different lessons from fire. New York grew upward and inward, packing people into dense tenements where the nightmare was being trapped inside. Chicago grew outward, building quickly and cheaply with wood...