The Night of the Maple

So, after all of that, what was that smell on Thursday night? Nobody really seems to know. The Daily News asks You Can't Make It Up(speaking of, we nearly choked reading her Titty Barb Bob post), the Post called Canada (they didn't call back) and the Times wondered if the "good smell" was that of Bloomberg's sweet success. All to no avail. In the meantime authorities seem confident that the maple smell wasn't toxic and the consensus (from the papers) is that the source was either a boat on the river or a building in lower Manhattan. Which really narrows it down.

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By Garth Johnston in Miscellaneous on October 29, 2005 2:20 PM

Comments [rss]

My Two Cents

I thought I was hallucinating that smell! Wow, funny to know that other people smelled it too...

Dirty Uncle Bob

The terrorists have the sugarbomb and are trying to make us all diabetic.

craig

I read a post on Metafilter in which one guy posted some solid evidence that it related to a steam boiler treatment that ConEd would have used to clean the millions of steam pipes that run below manhattan. No MeFi's reading gothamist?

Paul

I think I can call the first "smelling" at NYU around 7:30pm

Middle Browser

I smelled it Hoboken around 8:00 pm and on the way home to Jersey City around 8:45. I do suspect it came from my side of the Hudson, but cannot think of where. Is there a large Belgian population in New Jersey?

MB

Jesse

Am I the only person who smelled it up on 33rd Street around 9:30? Everyone else seems to say downtown and Brooklyn.

Jen W

Don't they make lots of artificial flavorings over in Jersey? That's my pet theory.

jake

i like the boat idea-- because the smell started north on the river, and seemed to move south along the island, and then was smelled towards redhook and pslope. so if a boat was headed down the river from 8pm, that might make sense.