4 ms·
Growing up in the NYC area I saw many 4 to 6 story apartments, built mostly before elevators became common and practical. The upper floors were considered undes
by excitom 9y ago
Growing up in the NYC area I saw many 4 to 6 story apartments, built mostly before elevators became common and practical. The upper floors were considered undesirable due to all the stairs.
Eight stories seems like quite a lot.
- rsynnott 9y agoThe Romans had some as tall as 9 stories; the top ones were indeed undesirable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insula_(building) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insula_(building) For ancient urban dwellers, though, you’d have to weigh the inconvenience of climbing stairs against the inconvenience of walking miles in from some notional suburb. Certainly in the case of Rome, there was really no option for most people.
- rurban 9y agoThe oldest appartments in Venice from the middle ages also had 8 floors, made of wood and they where very low height. They are also still in use.
- kjs3 9y agoUpper floors in this case are cooler.
- arethuza 9y agoEdinburgh had residential buildings up to 14 or 15 stories in the 17th century - land inside the city wall was very limited and building outside the wall was unpopular due to the threat from England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Edinburgh#Union_of_the_Crowns_to_Parliamentary_Union_.2817th_century.29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Edinburgh#Union_of_...
- pjc50 9y agoAlthough due to the geology of the place you can "cheat" this by building up a hill, it's not quite the same as building a freestanding 15 storey building. There are several places I know round the Bridges that have street level entrances four floors apart.
- arethuza 9y agoThat's true - and I believe there was a lot of tunneling down into the relatively soft rock of the tail of the Old Town "crag and tail".