Heat Consumed, Heat Wasted: Pipe Politics and the Migration of the Hearth in New York City, 1877–1882

In 1932, on the fiftieth anniversary of New York steam service’s inauguration, New York Steam Corporation (NYSC) published a drawing to illustrate how steam was generated, distributed, and utilized in the city. On the spread reproduced in Figure 1, a boiler station stands against a generic apartment building. A blownup sectional perspective of the steam main connects these two buildings. Rather than lying underground as a bare pipe, the steam main is placed in a conduit constructed out of hollow tiles, mineral wool, and asbestos. At the apartment building, the pipes snaked beneath the floor and inside the wall, entering each room as private fixtures: radiators, gate valves, meters, and dispensers. Despite each room’s apparent independence, the steam pipes reveal an inadvertent collectivity. They not only connect the faceless tenants but also indicate a broader landscape of supply and service that go far beyond the apartment building’s enclosure.