Why Does the South Street Seaport Smell?

Unfortunately, there are no clear answers, but a number of hypotheses were posed to the NY Post. They include rotting fish (ghosts of the Fulton Fish Market?), bodies from the Bodies Exhibit, illegal dumping, the NYC Waterfalls--and the smells reek like "dead rat," "stinky cheese" and "raw sewage." Mmm, and naturally that hurts some restaurants in the neighborhood. A smell scientist put his olfactory nerves to the test and told the Post, "Yes that is fish. But it's also yeasty, like bread." Like Subway's bread?

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By Jen Chung in News on July 28, 2008 11:23 AM

Comments [rss]

HellsYeah

You think South Street smells now? Think back 10 years. Unless you just moved here and are not yet used to the smells of the rotten-apple.

twakum

Its summer in the city, it ALWAYS smells.

pk4l

You speak of the shopper, how about the worker who is trying to earn a nickel and torlerate the smell.

grooverider

I could never figure out how The Gap managed to keep that many shoppers in its store (even with the fishmarket still around).

The instant you walked in it smelled so bad. Sadly, I did manage to purchase something after getting acclimated to the smell and once I got home i realized my mistake.

Bozack

"We're supposed to be up and coming and trendy," said resident Ellen Murphy. "Now we just smell like fish." Ha ha ha!

JRod5417

The East River does stink, but it smells much worse on the Manhattan side. This leads me to believe that is is probably a sewage problem since the fish market has been gone for a few years already.

1987porsche944

The smell of hipster wafting across the East River...

Spirit of 76

The East River always smells bad when I walk past it.

ed_Extinct

Subway bread is the nastiest shit!

Splicer

Perhaps it's all those New Yorkers who think bathing is optional.

dagblad

#2, If that's the case, that would be an amazing archeological find a few hundred years from now. For the sake of future generations, I say leave it!

chortik

i was there this weekend and to my great surprise it did not stink. my guess is it's also weather related - heat, wind.

babyhitler

The worst offender is the inside of the Gap at the Seaport. It smells like dead bodies and sawdust. 2 weeks ago they actually closed it and had a cesspool sewage truck outside to drain something on the inside. A cesspool sewage truck! in the gap. I think that's where the old fish market used to be. So I think the old owners used to have a hole somewhere where they use used to just throw in all the dead fish and dead mafia bodies and just brick it all up. Now the smell is coming out. 100 years of dead rotting fish.

jackdonaghy

It's a combination of that weird pumpkin ale sold by Heartland Brewery and the French whore perfume scent from Ambercromie and Finch. Just a guess.