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of exit, that the safe means of exit be either a fire-proof tower or a horizontal exit or an interior enclosed fire escape guarded against fire coming into it, that the occupancy for each of these means of exit be figured, that no more persons be allowed on the floor than could be accommodated by the existing means of exit, that in new buildings forty-four inches per person be regarded as the minimum, and that in old buildings thirty-six inches per person be accepted as the minimum tolerable per person, was unthinkable. Seventy-two inches wide was considered a crowded exit of two persons abreast. You must not have them wider than forty-four inches because that means that more people try to crowd in than can really get out. Movement is impeded. They must move rapidly two abreast down the stairway. For fire escape you reduce the occupancy permitted by a very high per cent. Only about a third of the number of occupants that are permitted for a fire-proof enclosed stairway are permitted for a fire escape. It's been decreasing all the time as experience showed that it was never a reliable form of exit.

This was shocking doctrine to the real estate lobby and to the real estate people, because their buildings were very largely old buildings. They didn't have seventy-two-inch-wide stairways in all cases. I don't think we found in the City of New York more than one or two fire-proof towers