"Walk-up" apartments (1906)

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I've spent much time recently in "walk-up" apartments. Is the "walk-up"  from 
New York? I don't have time to look at all of the hits, but it's from at  
least 1906. Can anyone identify some good earlier hits?
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(Oxford English Dictionary)
<i>walk-up</i>, a. and n.
 
 
A.  adj.  
1.  Of an apartment, etc.: that has to be reached by stairs rather than by a 
lift.  Also applied to a building consisting of such apartments. U.S. 

1919 _MENCKEN_ (http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-m3.html#mencken)  
Amr. Lang.  iv. 110 The term flat ‘is usually in the United States  restricted to 
apartments in houses having no elevator or hall service’. In New  York such 
apartments are commonly called walk-up apartments. 1927 _E.  GLYN_ 
(http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-g.html#e-glyn)  It iv. 40 Mary had a  tiny 
two~room apartment in a walk-up building in Brooklyn. 1942 N.Y.  Times 13 Feb. (late 
City ed.) 13/4 Six five-story  walk-up apartment houses. 1946 _MEZZROW_ 
(http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-m3.html#mezzrow)  & _WOLFE_ 
(http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-w3.html#wolfe)  Really Blues (1957) xiii. 235 Some 
crummy walk-up tenement flat. 1979 H. KISSINGER White House Years xxi. 906 
Huang Hua and I met around six o'clock in the CIA's walk-up  apartment in the 
East Seventies. 1984 Business  Rev. Weekly (Austral.) 4-10 Feb. 42/3 The Myer  
development is a three-storey walk-up affair that has appealed to a lower age  
group than usual for Gold Coast  units.

2.  That may be approached on the street, without having to go into a 
building. 

1963 C. J. MCCALL  in A. Dundes Mother Wit (1973) 421 The colorful 
window-signs of innumerable ‘readers’..cry out from  their store-front or walk-up 
locations. 1972 Sunday  Sun (Brisbane) 8 Oct. 16/1 The same bandit had  approached 
Miss Avery at her outside walkup window post on Tuesday and demanded  $3000.

B.  n.  
1. A  walk-up apartment or apartment block. U.S.  

1925  Scribner's Mag. Oct. 6/2  Vacation heaves into sight over the 
horizon..the swirling dust  turned into clean sand; the only walk-up a dune; and the 
total night life two  movie theatres. 1942 _R.  CHANDLER_ 
(http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-c2.html#r-chandler)  High Window xxv. 149 The  kind of 
dentists who have shabby offices on second-floor walk-ups over stores. 1954 F. P. 
KEYES  Royal Box xiii. 165 The friends  he had all lived in the identical kind 
of six-flat walk-up. 1966 R. STOUT  Death of Doxy (1967) i. 6 The  person to 
ask lived on the second floor of a walkup on 52nd Street. 1976 National  
Observer (U.S.) 4 Sept. 1/2 The blue-jeaned  couples climbing the stairs to their 
walk-ups together are most usually the  children of affluence. 1980 _J.  
KRANTZ_ (http://dictionary.oed.com/help/bib/oed2-k.html#j-krantz)  Princess Daisy 
xxv. 438  Daisy herself lived in a low-rent SoHo walk-up and held down a  
full-time job. 
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_IN  THE REAL ESTATE FIELD_ 
(http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=45&did=101811983&SrchMode=1&sid=2&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1121801
594&clientId=65882) 
New York Times (1857-Current  file). New York, N.Y.: Dec 16, 1906. p. 17 (1 
page) : 
Perhaps the most important fact brought out in this renting was that  
whatever oversupply of houseings there may be north of 135th Street is very  largely 
in the cheaper "walk-up" flats, whereas tenants have been found readily  and 
at good rates for accommodations of the better  sort.