It’s from the streamed clams they’re having.
Ah yes, the classic New York fog machine. Turns out it’s not for dramatic effect—just the city’s 19th-century steam system still doing its thing. Who needs modern infrastructure when you’ve got built-in Gotham vibes?
yo mama’s farts
They use a lot of steam for heating still
Hot. Moist. Air.
it’s steam not air
You can’t see steam. It’s not visible to the naked eye.
No it is Moist. Air.
That’s the steam from the melting pot
Steam from the steamed hams we’re having
And you call them that even though they are obviously grilled?
excuse me for a minute
Ooh. I know this one. Parts of NYC still use a steam heating system that was first designed in the late 1800’s:
Thank you. There’s so many people responding with unhelpful answers.
Removed by mod
I’ve never been called a boomer before, I’m far from it. Let me exchange a free idea and information; you’re a fucking moron.
Sorry to have hurt your millennial feelings.
No feeling hurt here. Quite the opposite. Again, allow me express my “free exchange of information and ideas” and my somewhat amused feelings; You’re a fucking moron!
Don’t feed the troll, ignore and move on.
And you, sir, are an accomplished wordsmith! I mean, “fucking moron” twice? Brilliant! Thank you for you contributions!
Wtf? Bad form, Peter Pan.
Wow that’s neat
No, that’s heat.
Yeet the heat or beat the meat
Yeet the meat not the heat.
You should tell this guy.
Old steam heating system. They vent it when they’re working on a section.
Side-note: surprised by all the fellow New Yorkers i’m seeing in this thread. I thought yous were still at the other place.
Yep. Detroit has this, too.
Yeah it’s common enough I figured most knew, but a few years ago I went ice skating at the bryant park rink with someone who refused to walk anywhere near the steam. They thought it was toxic and didn’t accept my explanation, so we had to walk an extra few blocks to get around the steam work. Shrug
I wonder if they could make it more efficient by running at a lower temperature and installing water source heat pumps in buildings. https://youtu.be/abGiNL9IT54
That’s a good idea! My understanding is that the old steam network is slated for decommission and replacement by this program, basically a large distributed geothermal heat pump network that also harvests from major heat producers like data centers and provides both heating and cooling.
It will end the era of the steamy-street Sin City aesthetic but should be many, many times more efficient than the old steam system. Phase-change thermal transfer in HVAC systems is nearing 400% efficiency, so 4 times more efficient than the theoretical limit of direct heating, because it only uses the energy necessary to move heat from one place to another rather than produce it, and it works for both heating and cooling.
Right now I believe they’re piloting the system in NYCHA buildings (public housing) of neighborhoods outside the old steam network, like Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, but supposedly the plan is to expand to the rest of Manhattan.
Edit: corrected coefficient of performance
Believe it or not. Very old infrastructure in the city. Still runs on steam power.
I swear I thought this answer was about as accurate as the one that said “dragons”.
How steampunk for probably the largest city in the world to use steam in this day and age? I love it…
I’m going to have to interject, NYC is the 11th [or 35th] largest city.
11th, OR 35th? Could you explain?
It depends on how you define the city, here’s my source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities
That list is from 2018
NYC didn’t grow any more populous since.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/14/nyregion/nyc-population-decline.html
Doesn’t mean other cities haven’t grown. Especially Chinese tech haven and trade hub cities are blowing up. If New York didn’t grow, it probably dropped several spots.
I don’t know why they include the surrounding areas as part of the city population. The 5 boroughs is roughly 8 million people. If you live in jersey city, you shouldn’t be counted as part of nyc population
I don’t know why they care about population https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities_by_area clearly land is more important because land votes not people.
Or 3rd or 76th.
There’s a really good explanation here:
It’s not steam. It’s smoke from wood fired pizza ovens for the turtle men that live there. There was a cartoon documentary about them on tv a few years back.
I never thought of them eating artisan pizzas. I always figured they’d get some shitty dominos.
Ew, gross. They live in a sewer, but they’re not animals.
They’re teenagers, taste doesn’t factor in much after cost and availability.
Have you never seen the movie? The only pizza they ate was from Domino’s.
And in every other piece of media, it isn’t?
They wouldn’t do dominos they’d probably get a variation of Rays famous near them
90s dominos also isn’t today’s dominos.
90s Dominos was trash. Even Dominos recognized old Dominos was trash.
Truth. Whatever they did 10-15 years ago made it tolerable. Not great, but tolerable.
I delivered for two locations shortly after they fixed the pizza. In both locations, shift leads and managers came up with so many excuses for house pizza. More than any other chain I worked for. I didn’t connect the dots until later. The pizza must have been much worse before.
I actually liked the crust after the change. It’s not great, but it was better than most other chains.
Product placement in a movie doesn’t count
They seem to have the only people willing to deliver to a drainage hole.
Hundred plus year old infrastructure.
You know how when rockets take off in Florida there’s lots of smoke?
Yeah there’s a tunnel that goes from Florida to New York that the smoke goes through to help heat up the New York streets. So anytime you see smoke in New York it’s cause a rocket was recently shot up in Florida.
TechnologyInfrastructure is incredible!Volcano under the city
