| As a young man I lived all over Brooklyn and | | | | burglar. |
| Manhattan. I stayed three years in a brownstone in | | | | But wrought iron. What beauty, what quality, what |
| Cobble Hill, four years on the Upper West Side, and | | | | style! Graceful curves accommodate planters bursting |
| 15 in a SoHo loft. Even after moving away I came | | | | with flowers or serve as an elegant encasement for |
| back to work in the city for six summers, sharing | | | | a mundane air conditioner. A delicate fleur-de-lis |
| apartments in midtown, the West Village, and | | | | softens the straight lines of a vertical gate, and |
| Tribeca. In every neighborhood, I spent a lot of time | | | | crosshatched iron alloys create a diamond-shaped |
| walking and cycling the streets and enjoying the | | | | pattern like antique leaded glass. Horizontal white |
| city's people, stores and restaurants, and most of all, | | | | gates recall Venetian blinds rather than prison bars. |
| its amazing buildings. | | | | Even high-security gates with both horizontal and |
| Now that I spend most of my time in the country, I | | | | vertical bars painted white can make a plain window |
| miss one feature of New York buildings that just | | | | look like one with 12-over-12 panes. To me, they're all |
| doesn't show up in most other places - window | | | | beautiful. |
| gates. They decorate brownstones, surround air | | | | They're really a city phenomenon, I suppose because |
| conditioners, keep children from falling out of highrises | | | | city residents feel more vulnerable to crime than |
| and, softened by bright red geraniums and draping | | | | most suburban and small-town residents. Their main |
| green ivy, protect tens of thousands of New | | | | purpose is to provide security, and the particular |
| Yorkers from break-ins and burglaries. They even | | | | value of quality gates like those at Mr. Locks- New |
| add a certain elegance to the glazed-white-brick | | | | York Locksmith company, is that they do it |
| apartment houses that everyone loves to hate in | | | | affordably and unobtrusively. In short, they're among |
| east midtown. | | | | the most sensible inventions ever designed to |
| They didn't always strike me that way. When I first | | | | protect people and property. They're a phenomenon |
| moved to the city I perceived them as bars, not | | | | worth celebrating. |
| gates. The only barred windows I'd ever seen were | | | | And, like elegant doors with secure locks, |
| in prisons, and those were clearly designed to keep | | | | well-designed window gates can also make a |
| people in, not out. I pitied the people who lived | | | | statement about the taste and values of the people |
| behind them. | | | | who live behind them, while providing an unending |
| But like many attributes of the Big Apple, window | | | | feast for the eyes of passersby. |
| gates grew on me as I began to understand why | | | | While prowling the Internet I found pictures of a |
| they were so popular, and so necessary. NYC wasn't | | | | wonderful old house in Cuernavaca, Mexico, of a set |
| a very safe place in 1970 (though it was never as | | | | of gated Moorish arched windows in an outside wall. |
| dangerous as most people seemed to believe), and | | | | And of course I familiarized myself with the full range |
| those half-inch square wrought iron bars made a | | | | of window gates available at Mr. Locks, Inc., which |
| point. In no uncertain terms they told would-be | | | | has one of the most wonderful selections I've ever |
| burglars, "Don't even think about it." | | | | seen, most of them custom-built to your |
| The point was driven home further by a few horror | | | | specifications. If you need to install gates on your |
| stories from the Times, the News and the Post | | | | windows, as you should, pay Mr. Locks a visit. |
| about children falling out of 10th-story apartments (so | | | | I also had what I think is a terrific idea. Everyone has |
| did one cat, surviving a fall from the 11th floor, as I | | | | seen the best-selling poster, "The Doors of Dublin," or |
| recall). | | | | one of the many knock-offs that followed (The |
| I still wasn't crazy about the cheap safety gates of | | | | Doors of . . . Brooklyn, Chicago, London, and who |
| aluminum or steel alloys that were deemed essential | | | | knows where else). Imagine a beautifully |
| for highrise-dwelling families with children, especially | | | | photographed, handsomely designed and printed |
| the accordion-fold ones with (illegal) padlocks that | | | | poster, "The Windows of New York," showing the |
| blocked access to fire escapes. They're ugly, not | | | | five boroughs' incomparable window gates in all their |
| particularly secure, easily manipulated by a determined | | | | variety and beauty. I bet it would be a best-seller, |
| kid, and not at all hard to pry out by a determined | | | | too. |