I live in a building with 195 apartments atop two stories of stores. Built in 1888 as an early coal-fired power plant and converted to residential use in 1979, it is one of those hundreds of thousands of New York buildings that predates the air conditioning age by many decades but have been retrofitted for modernity. In an effort to attract tenants, the landlord installed heavy duty window-mounted air conditioners in each apartment. The lobby, staffed by a doorman for 16 hours a day, does not have any air conditioning, so the doormen keep cool with fans. Some of the shops and restaurants have air conditioning and some don't. (The Indian restaurant where I got my lunch today was stifilingly hot, thanks not only to lack of a/c but also because of the kitchen, and all the drink refridgerators that were blowing hot air into the restaurant. People were sweating in there, but no less friendly than usual.)

Via our building's electronic bulletin board at Meet The Neighbors, residential tenants have started talking about a drive to install an A/C in the lobby. It seems to be driven not by a desire to keep cool while passing through the lobby, but by that quintessential New York democratic impulse to improve the working conditions of the working class staffers.