New fire escapes coming to Academy of Music - ACADEMY OF MUSIC

New fire escapes coming to Academy of Music

By CHAD CAIN

Staff Writer

Monday, May 12, 2014 
(Published in print: Tuesday, May 13, 2014)
The city is moving ahead with plans to replace four deteriorating fire escapes on both sides of the Academy of Music Theatre this summer, some 18 months after they were deemed unsafe and underwent emergency repairs.

City crews removed one of the escapes in 2012 and made temporary fixes to the other three, but the original units are not going to hold out much longer, David Pomerantz, director of the city’s Central Services Department, told the City Council at its May 1 meeting. “The building commissioner and our department has been monitoring the status of those repairs and the overall status of the fire escapes,” Pomerantz said. “They need to be removed and replaced.”

The council approved a request to appropriate $117,200 in free cash to pay for part of the $202,200 project, which came in higher than the council’s previous appropriation of $85,000 in fiscal 2012.

Pomerantz said the work on the fire escapes is scheduled to take place in July and August, the same time that the Academy will be shut down for extensive interior renovations.