Agreed.
WIKI
The First Tenement House Act in 1867 required a fire escape for each unit and a window for every room. The second second Tenement House Act in 1879 required windows to face a source of fresh air and light, not an interior hallway. An amendment in 1884 mandated interior plumbing. The failures of the Old Law—the air shafts developed to meet the minimum intent of the Act proved to be unsanitary as they filled with garbage, bilge water, and waste—led to the 1901 “New Law” and its required courtyard designed for garbage removal.
A typical Lower East Side street will be lined with five-story, un-ornamented pre-law (pre-1879) and six-story, fancifully decorated Old Law (pre-1901) tenements with the much bulkier grand-style New Law Tenements on the corners, always at least six stories tall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_State_Tenement_House_Act