The above picture would be quite happy in a Steampunk story of hard working steam engineers, pumping steam to new and interesting uses. Curiously though, it’s actually from the Con Edison site detailing their history of steam supply to New York city. It goes into pleasant detail about the early days of Con Edison company, about their first central steam boiler plant (one of the tallest buildings at the time) in 1881, to supplying their first customers in 1882.

Even today, New York city is apparently the worlds ‘steamiest’ city – serving over 100,000 commercial and residential establishments. For heating, cooling, steralizing, stain removal and more – they use the steam for a multitude of things. Personally, I’d never have thought that a city would still be using steam in this day and age, and despite the energy requirements, it heartens me to know there’s still steam being used, and in ways I hadn’t imagined! (Steralizing surgical instruments in the hospital! How clever.)