New York's Cooperative and Condominium Community
We are in a small coop (10 units) built in 1921. We have an outer lobby door and an inner lobby door. Our apartment buzzers are in the outer lobby, not on the front of the building. You have to enter through the outer lobby door to get to the apartment buzzers. The building has a rule that the outer lobby door must be locked after 9 PM--to keep out intruders who might decide to sleep in the outer lobby. This has happened a few times--once recently, unfortunately, when that door was left open. The problem is that emergency workers then do not have access to the building in an emergency. This has also happened, when we once called an ambulance late at night and forgot that they had no way to buzz our buzzer. They wound up rousing our neighbor, who let them in--we were too busy tending to the sick person to be watching the door. I was told that not having emergency access to a building via doorbell or buzzer is against the law in NYC--so I am trying to locate that law in order to force the rest of the board--I am Secretary-- to seriously consider going through the expense and trouble of installing a new system. (We are landmarked, so that is admittedly a hassle, but some similar buildings have done so--it's definitely possible.) Some of us are more worried about intruders in the outer lobby than about ambulances and fire trucks. They just ignore the concern. Does anyone have any advice on this?
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