No Address on That New York Building? The Fine May Be Going Up

Number 17 West 70th Street, a small apartment building of blond stone on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, stands between neighboring buildings numbered 19 and 15 — but you wouldn’t know it.

There are no address numbers on 17’s glass awning, and like many buildings in New York City, no address anywhere in sight of the street. In fact, only on a rubber mat tucked inside a vestibule does the address appear, underfoot.

Anonymous buildings have long peppered the city, confounding and aggravating tourists, locals, takeout deliverers and movers. But it is an omission that can do more than delay dinner: It can potentially impede fire trucks and ambulances responding to an emergency. While city regulations already require addresses to be visible, a bill recently approved by the New York City Council would strengthen the rules by requiring all public doors — even side exits — of buildings in the city to carry an address number. And it would also raise fines for scofflaw buildings.

“For the regular New Yorker, or tourist, or visitor, it’s more, ‘O.K., I went up and down the block, and I didn’t see the address, so let me go back down again,’” said Gale A. Brewer, the Manhattan borough president, who has pushed for such a law since she was a member of the City Council many years ago. “For the emergency vehicle it could be life and death.”

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/nyregion/no-address-on-that-new-york-building-the-fine-may-be-going-up.html