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Early Addition
After a report by NY1, the MTA is going to fix the broken sump pump at the 51st Street and Lexington Avenue 6 (with a connection to the E, F, V) stop. The riders' reaction to the smell are hilarious:
- "It smells like a backed-up bathroom."And it's sad, because we've been in that station and we can practically smell it with just the power of suggestion. What's typically stupid-MTA is that the sump pump has been broken/out of service for a year, which, NY1 reports, leaves "standing water to collect and stagnate in the elevator shaft." Blech. Why isn't the Department of Health on this?
- "It smells like a dead body."
- "It smells like a sewer. Like a broken sewer."
- "You feel like you're gonna faint."
- "You can be in a good mood, and all of a sudden you're in a bad mood."
A few weeks ago, the NY Sun had a great article about why the subway stinks so bad: It's because the NYC Transit uses biodegradable oils (like soybean oil) to "lubricate the hydraulic lifts in 98 elevators across the city's 468 stations." Okay, that only accounts for the stations with the elevators. But Gothamist is stumped as to where the horrible smell on the 1/2/3 line around 50th and 59th Streets is coming from - there are no elevators there.
What do you think is the smelliest subway station?
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canal street station of course.
A backed up sump pump that the MTA has known about for a year but as soon as NY1 reports it the MTA jumps into action. Thank god for election years.
The Boro Hall station in Brooklyn has smelled like vomit for about eight months now.
Finally! It's one of the reasons why I refuse to ride the 6. The EV side is tolerable except when the MTA is being retarded and turns off one of the escalators and refuses to fix it for a month so everyone's pushing and shoving to go up and down the station.
BTW, teh F doesn't come through there.
At times like this, don't you wish you lived at an elevated or open-cut station?
By far and away the East Broadway F stop. It's a trash/roach/rat party 24/7.
The worst smelling station was the Yankee Stadium B/D stop. The whole platform reeks of vomit even though there's none to be found.
I second East Broadway. People who use that stop just don't give a shit and there's always standing water on the tracks.
Lex/59 is pretty bad too.
Downtown side of the Canal Street 6. Hours upon hours have been spent trying to determine the mythological process that went in to making that smell.
The Canal St. N/Q platform is consistently revolting.
dowtown Q stop at canal, w/o a doubt. they keep dead bodies behind those closed doors, i know it! ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
There is one good thing about the 51st street stop, on the downtown side, durring the summer. There is an area on the platform that has A/C. It is just a trickle of cool air but oh so worth it on a hot day. I think it is coming from one of those fireproof switchgear rooms, to cool the equipment I assume. Fireproofed, except for the big slot at the ceiling from which my salvation pours. Still stinks though- but not as bad as the 34th C platform.
lex/59 street has a foul smell
I second the nom for the Yankee Stadium stop. I would also add that Atlantic/Pacific has a mysterious odor that reminds me of dissecting sharks in high school. Add the overwhelming heat to that and you just want to pass out.
I vote for either:
1) Union Square (at the bottom of the steps when you enter near Food Emporium). It smells like festering puss.
2) Penn Station (closest to 7th Ave) as you go up to the 2/3 express trains (near the elevator) it also smells like festering puss.
WHY????????
How much to drink a 1/2 cup of the standing water from the East Broadway line? Maybe one of "those people" will do it.
Google ads for this discussion: embarrassing vaginal odor; nyc railroad transit; and ameritania hotel. That's gotta be a helluva hotel.
The E terminus at Chambers St smells like crotch rot. I believe they dispose of all the garbage collected at every station on the E/A/C line there. There are stuffed hefty bags piled up to the ceiling. I'm sure they're filled with the limbs of unlucky MTA flaggers.
Canal street, those people eat too many durians. and it smells like explosive diarrhea.
Canal St. HANDS DOWN. No contest. The downtown N/Q platform, towards the middle where the Lafayette exit is excrutiating. It has to be a health hazard to be inhaling whatever that terrible smell is.
Canal St.'s 6 train exit areas/platform also smell like what I imagine a dead body or a bunch of rotting diapers would smell like. BLECH.
Plus, Canal St.'s platforms have that slime all over them that drips from the ceiling. Who the hell knows what that sewage-resembling goo is. Disgusting.
I agree, the N/Q Canal Street platform is just awful.. I don't understand what could make that smell other than decaying organic matter, whether animal or vegetable. It's beyond words.
Definitely the 4/5 platform at 59th street. It has this really pungent odor, kind of like the smell of a sneeze when you have a little sinus infection. What's more, it's smelled like that for at least 25 years that I know of -- I first noticed it when I was 11 or 12.
CANAL STREET DOWNTOWN 6 TRAIN EXIT!!!!
As soon as you reach the eggslicers it hits you like a bum's hot bear-hug. You gulp one last gasp of soiled air and bolt through, past the token booth and to the stairs. But you can never make it all the way up the steps without "oxygen". AND even at the top of the stairs, on the sidewalk amidst the regular Canal Street rotting-fish stink, that stench from the subway STILL dominates.
It is ALWAYS there. What is going on? What is it? The only thing I can compare it to is one of those rush hour subways cars that is strangely empty except for one slumped over figure; a sort of urban Siren for the hayseeds who step inside to their olfactory doom.
CANAL STREET DOWNTOWN 6 exit, hands down for being INVARIABLY revolting.
The downtown 6 at Canal Street is the most FOUL smell ever. Someone should carry a lysol can around and spray the hell out of that place. Yuck.
I'd have to say 125th St. ABCD. It always seems to smell like fish and trash!
Canal Street on the #6? Come down a bit furthur to City Hall, then walk to the J train platform. Rats on the platforms, spit all over the place, and the stench of death... blah...
The PATH stations always smell particularly foul, like a heady brew of body odor and feces and decomposing rat corpses.
The 2nd Ave F stop reeks of rat poison.
No one has mentioned the G train, specifically the fecal delights ever present at the Norman entrance for the Nassau stop. But the grand prize winner would be the Piss Tunnel at Fulton St...God Damn!! It's a challenge trying to hold your breath as you run from one end to the other, lest the acidic bleach/pee pee stench sears the lining of your lungs. At the very least, you fear it will cling to your hair, and you will forget to shower before getting cozy for nightttime slumber.
I forgot... the MTA could give two shits about the G.
"Penn Station (closest to 7th Ave) as you go up to the 2/3 express trains (near the elevator) it also smells like festering puss."
Agreed MMJJFF.
I try to avoid those stairs but it’s the easiest way to get to the higher numbered tracks from the 2/3 express lines. Its just beyond foul.
Although not a subway station, does anyone else find it horribly wrong that the smell of artificial butter from the adjacent pretzel stand tops the cornucopia of odors in the Penn Station women's bathroom? Is it even still there?
The Union Square/Food Emporium entrance (as mentioned above) and the Grand Central Lexington Avenue exit that goes into an office building I can't remember the name of. I have to use these everyday and they both smell like Parmesan cheese inside the rectum of a rotting corpse.
The southwest stair at the 207th street exit of the 207 St station on the A, and the immediately adjacent elevator shaft appear to be directly over some sort of sewer main. During the summer, it is intolerably rank.
West End Avenue from end to end smells like urine. It sticks in your nostril hairs and repeats itself long after you've left the area.
Once while I was riding the escalator up from the 53rd St./Lexington Ave. E/V station, rotting sewage actually dripped from the ceiling into my hair. No joke! So either you can brave the foul stench of sewage at the 51st St. 6 train stop, or run for your life to the E/V and hope nothing lands on your head. These can't be my only options in life.
Personally, when I'm in SoHo and yearning for that stale piss smell, I just pop into the 6 train station on Spring. Without fail, it hits you as if your old college roomate has come back with a post-frat-party-pissed-in-my-own-bed-blanket and wrapped it around your head. It gets more intense as you move down either side of the platform - a true delight.