I see what you're referencing, but if I were giving a size up based on what I saw I would say it's six stories.
Perhaps your sources consider the first floor a cellar, but it's at the very least a basement and therefore considered a story.
Anyone else want to chime in?
T123, I will first reference what EdMc wrote last year regarding an incident at Bronx Box 3525...
...“An interesting note for the size up of this building, when you look at the front of the building it almost looks like a 6 story building, but the size up given is a 5 story non-fireproof. When I worked as a back up aide in da Bronx I was told that where the front door stairs led is the first floor. So if you google map the front of the building you can see the stairs go up to the first floor and then you count from there. Also, to my knowledge, when tenements got built during this time, they did not require an elevator for 5 stories or less, the sixth floor you had to install one.”
I believe you are referring to the apartments at street level as the first floor. That is incorrect. Those apartments (and sometimes storefronts) are on the GROUND FLOOR. They are not a cellar or a storey (I still spell the word the way it was taught to me, way back when!). Ground floor units provide no entryway into the interior of the building or the main stairwell. Cellers, of course, are below ground level in the basement.
The first storey begins on the first floor which, as EdMc points out, begins where the main entry way leads to. In this building that means up a few stairs into the throat, then left or right up a few more steps, and then you are on the first floor or storey. The main stairwell begins there. In some buildings there are no ground floor units and the main entryway might only be a step or two up from the the street level, and that is then the first floor or storey.
This is the convention that is used in all matters of the building trades and was in the FDNY until only recently. Maps.nyc.gov, classifies this building as a five storey in accordance with accepted building codes. Why would the Department operate in contravention to existing standards?
I do not mean to be a wise ass, but it occurs to me that those who are mis calculating the number of storeys have never lived in these buildings. Those of us who have grown up in them can size up a five or six storey structure in a New York minute, so to speak. And a rule of thumb, elevator = 6 storey, walkup = 5.
But by now I am beating a dead horse here... no more “storey” comments from me, I promise.