Verticality in Advertising (Fractal Chinatown)

It took me six weeks of subletting in this building to realize this fire escape signage only really worked well because Chinese can be read vertically. I suppose if english functioned the same way New York would be littered with these things on every block. Two potentially countervailing factors, most of New York does not have the same density of mixed commercial and residential streets that Chinatown and the Lower East Side have. It also might be illegal, the rules after all are different in Chinatown...

This building interestingly enough marks a sort of fractal border to Chinatown, it's technically in the Lower East Side, and while most of block is Hispanics being pushed out by upper middle class whites, this building is 90% Chinese. With the white money pouring back into the hood it may well demarcate a limit to Chinatown's explosive expansion into the hoods formerly known as the LES and Little Italy.