03/04/2015
If you walk through Manhattan, you are guaranteed to tip-toe around or skip through some sort of steam venting from beneath the street. But why? Look to Con Edison, the city's power supplier, for answers.
Steam is piped to customers from the southern tip of Manhattan, all the way up to 96th street, but not all of what we see comes from where New Yorkers hope it does.
Some of it comes from controlled releases, vented from the pipes themselves. That's the good news. But other steam comes from water, and let's be honest - other liquids, dripping down onto the hot pipes below, which then changes state and re-emerges as steam through the many vents and manholes that litter the streets. Eesh.
It may be a stomach-churning nuisance to some, a necessity for others, but in the end, it's a pretty photogenic element of the city.
