Scents and the City

From Mystery Methane Scents to Decidedly Good Scents to Inexplicable Maple Syrup Scents to city cops with Absolutely No Scents, New York City has provided a wealth of olfactory fodder for the Whiff-Guys over the years. And, as it turns out, we’re by no means the only entity to stick our noses into the diverse aromas of this diverse city.

A group of researchers at Rockefeller University recently initiated a 5-year study to investigate how people process olfactory sensations and thus creating a “smell demography” of the Big Apple. “We don’t know what the rules are for going from a smell to a sensation of smell,” said Leslie Vosshall, one of the Rockefeller scientists, who presented some of her group’s findings at a day-long conference on scents and the city. The study subjected hundreds of volunteers recruited through Craigslist to intensive testing. Among their findings were the overall favorite and least favorite smells (vanilla and sweaty socks, respectively), the best sniffers (young non-smoking females), racial differences in scent perception (Caucasians like nutmeg while African-Americans prefer sandalwood), and the fact that a lot of people appear to have a distorted view of their own olfactory abilities. “We found a whole lot of people who are incredibly into volunteering for smell studies and are completely blind to odors,” said Dr. Vosshall, noting that - unlike people who suffer from blindness - they are “completely unaware” of their inability to detect scents.

Most of the more than 6,000 odor and fumes complaints received by the city in 2009 originated in Manhattan, according to city Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Farrell Sklerov. The complaints encompassed idling vehicles, smells from restaurants, private garbage collection and dry cleaning.

The reactions of New Yorkers to the intense smells of their thriving metropolis are as varied as the scents themselves.

“It smells terrible,” said Susan Wong from the Bronx, who particularly hates the stench of garbage. “You just don’t want to come here.” Chinatown’s Eddie Hires says it all depends on the time of year. “Right now, it’s all right. But then in the summer, they have garbage trucks, and it smells like dead bodies or something. It’s awful.”

Others have more of a glass-is-half-full opinion, like tourist Ellie Simpson of North Carolina, who thinks the city’s smells are a great tour guide. “You don’t have to look,” she said. “You just have to smell.”

For Dr. Uddalak Majundar, who recently moved to New York City from Calcutta, India, the many odors make the city come alive for him. “You can have an entire group of people communicate their culture through their smells,” he said.