New York City banned fire escapes in 1968 — and the replacement was proposed in 1881
Whatever Happened to Fire Escapes
External fire escapes became an American icon, but engineers doubted them almost from the start. After the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire, where a fire escape collapsed under fleeing workers, critics called them a "pitiful delusion." New York City banned them for new construction in 1968, adopting instead the enclosed, fireproof internal stairways the Franklin Institute had recommended back in 1881.
As a general rule, applicable to all buildings, the main reliance should be placed upon stairways in daily use, for the obvious reason that the occupants of a building instinctively seek such an escape in case of fire, that they are familiar with it, and that, being in daily use, it is reasonably certain to be unobstructed and to have the approaches to it clear.