in the 1950s and 1960s, certain problems with fire escapes became clear. In the poorer areas of several major American cities, such as New York, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh, fire escapes were commonly used for everything but their intended purpose. In the hot summer months, residents of mid-rise apartment buildings would sleep outside on the platforms of their fire escapes. Such a situation triggered the plot premise of Cornell Woolrich's 1947 short story, "The Boy Cried Murder", about a boy on a fire escape who one night witnesses a murder in a neighboring apartment; this story was filmed as the suspense thriller The Window (1949). The practice of sleeping on fire escapes can also be seen in Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 movie Rear Window (also based on a Woolrich short story), as well as Weegee's photography of the Lower East Side. Diagonal shadows of fire escapes made them a constant motif in film noir, and the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet was transposed to a fire escape for the musical West Side Story. Fire escapes could also be used to comic effect, as seen in Stanley Kramer's 1963 comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The installation of window air conditioners in individual apartment units with fire escape-facing windows, often installed against code or local ordinance by residents, which require the unit to be affixed to the window sash, also make a fire escape nearly useless in the summer months; the bulk and weight of an air conditioner unit shoved onto or over a fire escape in an emergency also creates additional danger for firefighters and evacuees. Boston Herald American photographer Stanley Forman won a 1976 Pulitzer Prize for the photograph Fire Escape Collapse capturing a young woman and child plunging from a faulty fire escape during a 1975 Boston fire. The controversial image resulted in some jurisdictions enacting tougher fire safety codes. High-rise fire escapes As buildings are built taller and taller, new fire escape ideas have been gaining popularity. Elevators, though traditionally not used as fire escapes, are now being thought of as a possible evacuation for high-rises and skyscrapers. Other alternate high-rise fire escape solutions include parachutes, external collapsible elevators, and slides. Residential The use of a fire escape is dictated by various local, state, and agreed upon international building codes, such as standards provided by the International Code Council (ICC), the International