New York Laws
Title 2 - Fire Protection and Safety
54 - Cellar Entrance.

§ 54. Cellar entrance. There shall be a direct entrance to the cellar,
or to the lowest story if there be no cellar, from the outside of every
multiple dwelling erected after April eighteenth, nineteen hundred
twenty-nine, except that in non-fireproof multiple dwellings erected
after such date which are three stories or less in height and occupied
by not more than two families on any story, any stair leading to such
cellar or lowest story may be located inside the dwelling provided it is
enclosed in fireproof walls and fireproof doors and assemblies with the
doors self-closing, at both the level of such cellar or lowest story and
that of the story above. No such outside entrance existing in any
multiple dwelling on April eighteenth, nineteen hundred twenty-nine,
shall be obstructed.

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