u/NRJourno

Old dumbwaiter shafts are a major fire hazard affecting NYC apartment buildings. They can be found all across the five boroughs. In a rooftop video of the 18-24 Madison Street fire in Ridgewood earlier this year, one can be seen spewing out flames.

There are directions on how to find them in your building, and a some directions on how make them more safe, so if you just want the practical advice feel free to scroll down.

Human written. Human researched.

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I hope the community finds it helpful!

I'm a journalist about to shoot some photos for my story on Bronx building fires, mostly in "Apartment House" style buildings (5-6 story walk-ups built in the 1910s and 20s with large footprints). All of the buildings I'm currently planning to photograph have had recent fires, and even if they aren't completely destroyed, generally aren't in the best condition.

These Apartment House style buildings can also be quite gorgeous though, especially if their original facades have been maintained. Does anyone know of any particularly good looking, and / or well maintained examples of this style of apartment building?

I'll be all over the Borough, so dw about specific neighborhoods, though I know I'll be spending a bit more time in Norwood. If you don't want to comment addresses send me a dm. Thanks!

Hello to the users or r/bronx.

My name is Nicole, and I am a freelance journalist that covers housing, municipal issues, and the recent increase in fires in NYC, which is mainly occurring in The Bronx. I write my own substack called The Knickerbocker Beacon, and have written for City Limits.

My last report on the issue went into the where and when, and I am now looking at the why. Currently, I'm looking at a known fire hazard that seems to be a common architectural feature in older Bronx buildings: dumbwaiters.

These are old, mini elevators that used to carry trash, groceries, coal, etc... These can open up into apartments, or hallways. Some have been converted into trash chutes.

They're mostly found in larger, 4+ story walkup buildings, built between 1900 and 1930. Stabilized, large, and without elevators (though some of them do also have elevators).

Many sources online say that the majority of these have been closed off for fire safety reasons. However, I am looking to know more about how, when, and why these were originally closed off (i.e. who orderd it, and when). I am also looking to learn how common unsealed, or even still used dumbwaiters are in the borough. I am also interested in learning how they were originally used. Basically, if you know anything about them, I'm interested in hearing about it.

If you want to reach out, you should DM me at this account. I can provide verification of my identity. I have permission from the moderators to make outreach posts.

There is very little written about dumbwaiters, so any information could be helpful.

Thanks in advance, and I hope everyone is having a good summer!

Edit:

I also know that this sub isn't that large, so any info on where to ask, and who might know about this would also be helpful too!

The rent freeze just passed! However, it doesn't apply to all apartments, and determining your apartment's status can be complex. That's why I wrote this guide. It covers which apartments the rent freeze applies to, how to determine if your apartment is included, and the historical reason why it’s so hard to find out.

If you find this useful, please consider signing up for a paid subscription. I write, edit, and fact check these articles by myself, so your support would be greatly appreciated.

Hi all! I'm a journalist that's currently planning on doing a periodic report on a specific municipal dataset. I have a consistent set of transformations I need to apply to those datasets every time I ingest them. Currently, the way I do this is to just write a function, copy the function into a jupyter notebook, import the dataset set, and do the transformation in there.

This is obviously more time consuming than it needs to be. I would like to set up a workflow where I just download the set, and just immediately make a new copy with the transformations applied, without having to open an IDE or Jupyter. However, I haven't worked much on recurring processes, so would like to know how to implement this best.

I'd prefer to keep this all on my local machine (I'm on MacOS). What would be the best way to set up this sort of one or two click process?

Hi everyone! Posting this here because I'm publishing out of Bushwick. It's a brand new publication, so sharing would be incredibly helpful for growth. It's also the only sub this account is active in.

These fires caused at least 9 deaths, 62 injuries, and 823 displacements. They were mostly in residential structures, and half of the total were in large multi-family buildings. In the article I break down where these fires are happening, and the risk factors that can increase severity.

Edit: Also, for updates on this story please subscribe! I'll be continuing to cover these fires, and many more articles on various topics are on the way.