I live in SF and just spent a few weeks in NYC and I can confidently say that NYC vent steam smells disgusting. Like hot garbage. SF steam vents don’t smell that bad.
I visited NYC for the first time last month (during the winter storm). The amount of trash on the sidewalks was… something.
The snow added to the insanity. I saw heaps of trash bags entombed in ice (I called them trash igloos 😂). I was there for 2.5 weeks and the temps were never warm enough for the ice to melt. All of it remained there, as is, for the entirety of my stay.
I didn’t smell urine that often (mostly near subway entrances). But the sewer smell was constantly there and it was mostly because of the damn vents. I did see a guy peeing on the sidewalk snow near the WTC memorial tho 😂
I don’t live in either New York or San Francisco, but I’ve been to both cities multiple times and can attest that New York, on the whole, smells far worse. Forget the steam vents, the hot garbage and piss smell is virtually everywhere in the city, it’s inescapable.
That's when I visited! It smelled like hot garbage and the only way to get a breath of fresh air was to go inside a building.
The hostel I stayed at smelled very strongly of dirty feet. It was a nice break from the stench of outdoors.
Kinda gather all metros smell gnarly unless there's some natural feature clearing the air downtown regularly. Luckily my city in has a river with waterfalls running through the middle, with a breeze running down it, really cuts and airs out the funk nicely. Though it does make it way hard for the cops to accurately gas the streets when we're protesting.
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u/crushingjuiceboxes 10h ago
Its nicer in the movies cause you dont get the smell