Orange Steam Funnels Are a New York Symbol. What Are They For?

[brooklynite]

To quickly establish that a film is set in New York City, a Hollywood director could show the Empire State Building or the Brooklyn Bridge. But often, the chosen symbol is far less majestic: an orange-and-white-striped tube spewing steam over a busy street.

These plumes of hot vapor are as closely linked to the city as yellow taxis, the subway and 24-hour bodegas.

The steam funnels are an appendage of the city’s extensive network of pipes that distribute steam, at high pressure and about 400 degrees Fahrenheit, to office towers and apartment buildings throughout the densest parts of Manhattan.

Created 142 years ago, the steam system is the United States’s oldest and, with 105 miles of pipes, its largest. The utility company Consolidated Edison uses those pipes, most of which are buried beneath the city’s streets, to supply steam for heating, cooling and other commercial uses like dry cleaning.

But now and then, here and there, one of the pipes springs a leak and the escaping steam billows up through the nearest manhole.

https://www.nytimes.com/card/2024/04/02/nyregion/steam-funnels-con-edison-nyc

[Think. Again.]

1. Wait, NYC has "socialized" heat?

[IcyPeas]

2. everyone knows it's the dragons who live in the sewers