October 28, 2005
Maple Sugar Smell Mystery!
Something strange is going on-- last night the whole city smelled like maple syrup! Gothamist has gotten reports from all over Manhattan-- and we smelled the strange, sweet odor as far south as Chambers Street. Gothamist Contribute also has some reports:
The whole city smells like maple syrup and everyone knows it! Tell us why.Maple syrup dirty bomb? Commence panic! Is there a huge, maple syrup slick in the East River that we don't know about? [Related: You Can't Make It Up also noticed the smell!.]
October 28, 2005 02:38 AMSame smell is pervading the Greenwich Village / NYU area -- both outdoors and in, I smelled it in my apt earlier and thought a neighbor was making french toast or something but it's clearly something bigger. Maple syrup dirty bomb???
October 28, 2005 02:09 AMI'm on W. 96th St. and I can smell it, too. I thought there was some food hidden in my room somewhere.
October 28, 2005 01:04 AMThe air smells of maple syrup in the Upper West Side. Anonymous individual sources questioned at street corners around Harlem agree that for some reason it smells very sweet and syrupy. Everyone speculates that a pancake truck or maple syrup factory has caught on fire. Perhaps Gothamist can investigate? (around Columbia Uni area + Harlem area)
October 28, 2005 12:50 AM
Update: The New York Times doesn't know what it is, either!
Update: News Channel 4 just said they have no idea what it was, but that they didn't think it was dangerous!
Update: Apparently it could be smelled all the way in Astoria!
Update: NY1 says: "Officials from the Office of Emergency Management have been running tests all night to try to figure out just what the smell is. A spokesman says air samples aren't showing anything hazardous, the source of the smell is still not clear."
Image is clearly from 1010 WINS, whose graphics department deserves a prize [via commenter notlaughing]
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holy shit, I love you guys! I thought I was having a stroke last night. I could smell it in Brooklyn too. I could not figure out where it was coming from. I thought it was someone cooking near my house. But then I left, and smelled it the entire night. What the hell was that?
I smelt it in East Harlem
I smelled it too. I was racking my brains all day trying to figure out how I got maple syrup on my hands! I live in the East Village and work in Chelsea.
A Canadian terrorist attack?
We had a very similar smell even out here in Hackensack, NJ. The wind must have carried it over?
whoa! we smelled it all night in Hell's Kitchen! we were going nuts trying to figure out where it was coming from...
definitely caught a whif in Carroll Gardens last night, but not Windsor Terrace.
Wow, I thought it was just me. I smelled maple syrup last night inside my apartment - I thought I had spilled some syrup from breakfast the day before, and I was obsessed with figuring out where it was! Thanks for letting me know I'm not crazy.
So I come out of the woolworth building and smell caramel... and then there's like eight fire trucks, a couple of police cars and random assorted emergency services parked up and down the stretch of broadway by the city hall subway stop, so I assume that whatever they're dealing with has something to do with the smell (maybe it did...?)
But then I could smell it again around astor place, so maybe it didn't.
We could definately smell it in Long Island City, but assumed it was the candle factory in Greenpoint.
i too smelled it in east village & then in harlem last night -- glad to know that i wasn't going (too) crazy -- kept asking my boyfriend about it...
The maple sugar smell is a terrorist plot to incapacitate our city by inducing insuin shock on a massive scale hitherto unknown.
this is ridiculous. smelled it all last evening in park slope/BK...
I don't like it at all!! Why is the smell in so many different areas around the City. I think this is being taken too lightly!
Sorry everybody...I left the windows open last night while I was making a batch of my famous maple sugar rice krispie treats
Smelled it in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn last night. I thought it was coming from an old cup of coffee. Guess not.
Gothamist, you MUST get to the bottom of this! I totally kept catching a whiff of maple syrup last night while I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep in Long Island City. Very light, but it kept driving me crazy. I assumed I was having some sort of brain tumor-induced olfactory hallucination. Eventually, I concluded it was probably my Bath & Body Works Pumpkin Body Butter and fell asleep. Anyone still smelling it today?
There are reports that the people smelled the maple syrup smell in different states.
This is VERY strange!
I thought I was crazy last night- I was smelling it all night in my apartment on the UWS (100th & Amsterdam). I'm so glad to know it wasn't just me!
It also smells liek maple syrup in NJ: Fort Lee, CLiffside Park, Teterboro, Hasbrouck Heights......
Well...i'm on Forest Ave in Staten Island and it sure smells like syrup here too.
I was just thinking about all the talk about the Old Domino Sugar Factory. I was wondering if they broke some new ground?
Does anyone have any idea of what is going on? Why are emergency responses state and Federal still testing the air if this is just a normal occurrence? Any answers?
OK...I smelled this in Hoboken. I thought a neighbor was baking something yummy & I was jealous!
I smelled it in the Central Village and figured I needed a shower. This makes me feel better... sort of.
i was in a basement theatre and could smell it. (west village.)
it was just an alien invasion from the planet pancake.
Just in time for Halloween - the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man has farted!
I don't know why this is being taken lightly, either. For example, Pat Kiernan and Molly Kroon were laughing about it this morning on NY1.
However, is there anyone who thinks that this could have been caused by anything other than a major chemical release? A Google search for "maple syrup like odor" produces 'Benzoic Acid', C6H5COOH for those who might care.
Also:
BENZOIC ACID information from Flinn Scientific, Inc. P.O. Box 219 Batavia, IL
White crystalline powder with a maple syrup-like odor.
Slightly toxic by ingestion. Severe irritant. Avoid contact with skin, eyes and respiratory tract. Combustible solid.
Flinn at a Glance:
Health-1
Flammability-1
Reactivity-1
Exposure-1
Storage-0
0 is low hazard; 3 is high hazard
So it doesn't seem to be particulary hazardous (IF this is even what is causing the smell).
Also, the industrial uses are:
The industrial applications are as a corrosion inhibitor, as an additive to automotive engine antifreeze coolants and in other waterborne systems, as a nucleating agents for polyolefin, as a dye intermediate, as a stabilizer in photographic processing and as a catalyst. Wide range of benzoic esters are used as solvents, dying carrier, disinfectant additive, penetrating agent and pesticides and manufacturing other compounds.
So maybe (very wild guess) someone was using it as an antifreeze in something, but it boiled off into the atmosphere? Do we have any industrial chemists in here?
Its EGGO-Terrorism!
Does anyone think this is a test by terrorists, using a non-toxic/easily located gas? Say, to see how effectively they could gas the entire city from one bomb site?
my theory is that some sinister maple syrup corporation or the IHOP chain decided to pump maple syrup flavoured water into the sewage system, and last night the water vaporised and blanketed the city, a la Batman Begins. Hence this morning everyone's waking up and craving pancakes and maple syrup!
I've been wondering, too, why everyone finds this so entertaining (though I must admit the 1010Wins graphic of Aunt Jemima and the Empire State Bldg is kind of cute). I'm pretty damn scared. I've lived all over the NY metro area, and you smell factory smells/spills all the time from weird sources. But nothing like this, so pervasive -- yet it was also very subtle. I kept thinking it was something I'd gotten on my clothes, not something wafting in from outside. I work in an ad agency, and someone joked that maybe this was a really great promotion for IHOP. If that's the case, I'm abandoning this sick industry immediately.
I smelled it in Brooklyn Heights! made me hungry for pancakes and waffles.
well, if we're all a victim of a terrorist attack, at least it was a cloud of maple syrup smell and not a cloud of feces stank.
I smelled it in Bayonne last night too. I thought it was a great improvement over the usual smells.
smelled it in fort greene, brooklyn and commented to my girlfriend, "did someone have a waffle bonfire?" what is it???!!!!
It's kind of funny, but at the same time, I don't think that this completely a laughing matter. I'm sure that behind the scenes, the NYPD was seriously checking this out because some chemical weapons have a sweet or fruity smell, not chemical smelling at all.
Same smell in Park Slope. I kept smelling my robe and thinking "When did I spill waffles all over myself?"
I got a whiff of it in the Lower East Side around 9pm. Maybe the film crew on Rivington was having a pancake dinner?
I kid you not....Maple syrup urine disease
" Maple syrup urine disease (MSUD) is caused by the inability to metabolize the branched-chain amino acids leucine, isoleucine, and valine. The disease is called MSUD because urine from affected people smells like maple syrup."
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000373.htm
Smelled it in the South Slope, too.
I walked across the pulaski bridge towards home in greenpoint last night (past the aformentioned candle factory) and I was actually like, thank god they are brewing a new scent other than the highway reststop strawberry they usually make. It did smell distinctly like maple syrup- I had assumed it was a new fall scent.
How weird (and also scary if there are chemical implications)
seriously, if it is benzoic acid (or something else serious), wouldn't that be a way to test powder dispersion within a large city?
i smelled it on and off all day, but it was specifically strongest in our bathroom last night. (we assumed the neighbors were cooking in their kitchen thru the wall.)
i hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but if the smell was coming through the water pipes, that's really not so good...
i feel cheated, I didn't smell anything in greenpoint!!! :(
maybe it's because I'm a little stuffed up, but nobody I knew mentioned anything. I guess the normal gross funk that encases greenpoint overpowered the sugary maple syrup treat last night....
grrr
I smelled it at Columbia University last night, although I thought it smelled like a frappachino or something from Starbucks.
Maybe its like Ghostbusters but instead of Stay Puff Marshmallow man its a giant Mrs. Buttersworth like the picture. Just in time for Halloween.
I kid you not....Maple syrup urine disease
" Maple syrup urine disease (MSUD) is caused by the inability to metabolize the branched-chain amino acids leucine, isoleucine, and valine. The disease is called MSUD because urine from affected people smells like maple syrup."
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000373.htm
I smelled it in Park Slope around 8:00pm.
Oh my god, I thought I was insane last night, I definitely smelled it in Battery Park City!
Holy freaking shit!! I smelled in our building on W.14th all the way up to 21st and then inside my aparmtnet on the UES. I'm glad I'm not going crazy!!!
I smelled it last night around 9:30. I was walking east towards the LES. I just figured it was the Domino's Sugar Plant making all sorts of treats for the holidays.
I amazingly thought absolutely nothing of it except why did I smell like maple syrup. For some weird reason, I knew I hadn't actually eaten any, but I guess I didn't care enough to think that it could be coming from anywhere else. But holy crap ... the whole city? 83rd and Broadway smelled it, that's for sure!
Smelled it in Newark about an hour ago. It smells better than the usual Passaic stench.
I live in Park Slope. I've yet to make pancakes in my apartment. That's why I was puzzled about the smell. Last night I thought it was odd. Now I'm somewhat nervous.
So weird. Last night I said to my husband, "Doesn't it smell like hazelnut coffee in here?" I had no idea until just now that the whole city apparently smelled like that (despite the fact that I couldn't quite accurately identify the smell).
Wasn't Vermont doing some kind of tourism campaign in NY recently? Perhaps this is a subliminal trick to get people to take a long drive for some pancakes with GENUINE Vermont maple syrup....
Just a nitpick: Mrs. Butterworth's, as shown in the 1010 WINS graphic, isn't real maple syrup. There's just no comparison between the real thing and those phony pancake syrups.
Great point from Brightliner! I did actually think that smell was more cheap, pseudo maple syrup (Yankee Candle-y "maple") smell than real woodsy-cabin, expensive stuff in the glass/metal decanter.
i too smelt the syrupy goodness in Chinatown near City Hall. i was just happy it wasn't the usual smells of garbage and fish. i think it's part of a guerilla marketing campaign. i ended up eating maple-flavored oatmeal this morning. Quaker and Aunt Jemima must be stoked.
On the Domino Sugar Factory comment...don't people live there now? no longer really a factory?
I smelled it too! I can't believe this. I was in my apartment near Columbia U. I thought someone was making pancakes..it was such a strong odor. This is kind of scary.
Definitely smelled it in downtown Brooklyn all night. Never thought it was a bad thing though - better than most aromas that can waft around this city.
Ya, my fiance and I were walking to the cash machine on the Upper East Side, and I was like... "Something smells sweet, like those Canadian Maple Syrup candies you get at the Duty Free." And he was like, "Ya, you're right, I love those. Hmmmm... Where is that coming from?" We looked around for a bakery, or a dunken donuts, and didn't see one in sight. Then my fiance says, "I bet it's from the Starbucks up on the corner." And I was like, "Ya, probably." We walked up to the corner, and were a bit confused, and then just attributed it to all the empty syrup bottles in the trash on the curb. We didn't really speak of it sense... Very curious, indeed... Funny how it was all over NYC!?!?!?
I smelled the maple syrup last night beginning at around 10:00pm inside my apartment in Hoboken, NJ! I thought that I was smelling remnants of blueberry pancakes that I had made the last two weekends in a row, until I realized that I hadn't had any syrup for the pancakes! My husband thought that I was crazy with my syrup reception, until he read about it online today!
If it wasn't malicious or a test dont you all think someone would have claimed responsibility by now????
What I find interesting is that this morning I was not in the slightest bit hung over after consuming my fair share of sauce last night. If this has anything to do with last night’s air quality, I think I could get use to the sweet smell of maple.
My coworkers and I smelled it, and we live all over the city: Central Harlem, Morningside Heights, and Hell's Kitchen. I agree, it smelled like fake maple syrup. The smell permeated my apartment, even with no windows open.
Will the city actually release the information if they figure out it was something dangerous or it was someone using a harmless substance to test air patterns?
I first noticed the smell as I was driving home from the Upper West Side (around 75th) when I arrived in Central Harlem (135h and Lenox) it was still strong and I assumed it was the bunch of flowers I was given (you know the maple syrup smelling kind). Maybe the maple syrup smell is some widespread project aimed at making us smarter. Or dumber. It's a government conspiracy aimed at distracting us from society's ills and corruption by creating an overwhelming need for breakfast foods. If only the X-files was still around - they could do their own "Ripped from the Headlines"...