A cathedral scale boiler house on the East River: three riveted pressure vessels, a catwalk, valve wheels and gauges, steam leaking from the flanges, the orange and white stack through the high window. The New Yorkers hang on the boiler flanks and along the inspection wall.
Manhattan has been heated by district steam since 1882, when the New York Steam Company began service in Lower Manhattan. Con Edison runs it today as the largest steam system in the country. Six generating stations push up to 8.5 million pounds of steam an hour through 105 miles of mains, serving more than 1,500 customers from the southern tip of Manhattan to 96th Street. About 60 percent of the steam comes from cogeneration alongside electricity.
Source · Con Edison ↗
Three riveted horizontal boilers with domed ends and steam drums, the raised catwalk with engineers on it, the long brick and steel inspection wall with caged bulbs, valve wheels and gauge dials, the firebox glow, instanced steam rising from the flanges, the banded stack and skyline through the end window, the shift board of time cards. Mood: pressure held. Everything is procedural geometry with painted surfaces; nothing is a scan or a photograph. The room is an interpretation, and it hangs the New Yorkers the census recorded at this place first.