Six stories or fewer: no FISP to lean on
FISP, the city's five-year facade program, applies to buildings greater than six stories. A six-story apartment building is outside it, so no FISP report will ever stand in for your parapet observation. You need one every calendar year, finished by December 31.
Use that annual report as a maintenance record. The rule requires each report to list the repairs made since the previous one, so over time your file shows what was found, what was fixed and when, which is also what you would want to hand the DOB if it asks.
Fire escapes and gooseneck ladders
Front fire escapes matter to a parapet observation in two ways. The DOB accepts a close-up observation from a fire escape, so the top landing can be a working position for the outside face of the parapet. And the fire escape is attached to the parapet: its handrail attachments, and the gooseneck ladder that climbs from the top landing over the parapet to the roof, are appurtenances the rule names. Each must be stable.
Where steel is anchored into masonry, watch for rust. Corroding steel expands and cracks the brick around it, and a loose gooseneck anchor is both a falling-masonry risk and an unsafe ladder. Reaching a front fire escape usually means going through an apartment window, so the super should arrange access with those tenants ahead of time.
Patterned brick, corbels and raised parapets
Art Deco and other pre-war apartment buildings often concentrate their decoration at the top: patterned and corbelled brick, terra cotta panels and copings, and raised parapet sections at the corners or over the entrance bays. Ornament adds joints and projections, and each one is a place for water to get in and freeze.
Tall and raised sections are where the plumb check matters. The rule requires each parapet to be plumb within one-eighth of its cross-sectional thickness, and a lean is a structural question, not a cosmetic one. A horizontal crack running along a mortar joint near roof level is a common sign that a parapet has started to move.
Your super is allowed to do it. Why use a licensed professional?
The rule lets "a person competent to inspect parapets" do the observation, and it names building superintendents, handymen, masons and bricklayers alongside engineers and architects. A super doing it is legal.
VetraCheck uses licensed engineers and architects because the hard part is judgment: deciding whether a crack or a lean is something to monitor or a hazardous condition. A hazardous finding starts a fixed sequence: an immediate report to the DOB, public protection at the building and a 90-day repair clock with no extensions. That call deserves a trained eye, and a report from a licensed professional is easier to stand behind if it is ever questioned.
Your super still matters. They hold the keys, know the roof and usually know where past repairs were made.