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N.Y. MDW Law § 214

This is the official text of N.Y. MDW Law § 214, part of New York’s MDW Law — part of the compiled statutory law of New York, published by the state as "MDW Law." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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Size of rooms

Official statutory text

§ 214. Size of rooms. 1. In every tenement erected after April\ntwelfth, nineteen hundred one, the sizes of living rooms shall meet the\nfollowing requirements:\n a. In each apartment there shall be at least one living room\ncontaining at least one hundred twenty square feet of clear floor area,\nand every other living room except a kitchen shall contain at least\nseventy square feet of clear floor area.\n b. Every living room which contains less than eighty square feet of\nclear floor area or which is located in the cellar or basement shall be\nat least nine feet high, and every other living room at least eight feet\nhigh; these measurements to be taken from finished floor to finished\nceiling.\n c. Every living room shall have a least horizontal dimension of at\nleast six feet and, if the tenement was erected after April eighteenth,\nnineteen hundred twelve, of at least seven feet; except that the minimum\nhorizontal dimension of any kitchen and of a maid's or servant's\nsleeping room in a fire-proof tenement in which one or more passenger\nelevators are operated, shall be six feet.\n 2. In any tenement, apartments containing three or more rooms may have\ndining bays, which shall not exceed fifty-five square feet in floor\nsurface area and shall not be deemed separate rooms or subject to the\nrequirements for separate rooms or alcoves. Every such dining bay shall\nbe equipped with such appropriate permanent fittings as may be required\nby the department and shall also be provided with at least one window\nopening directly upon a street or upon a yard or court which was lawful\non April eighteenth, nineteen hundred twenty-nine. The area of such\nwindow shall be one-eighth at least of the floor surface area of such\ndining bay. No dining bay shall be permitted in any apartment containing\nless than three rooms.\n

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.