Is it January 2009 (or October 2005, March 2006, November 2006, November 2007, or May 2008) again, or are you just hallucinating? Or is the air just pre-gaming for tomorrow's National Pancake Day? We received two independent scentings of maple syrup—one on the Upper West Side and one in New Jersey—so we put on our deerstalker hat to investigate. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg and other city officials may have named North Bergen, NJ factory Frutarom as the source of the mysterious maple syrup smell that wafts into New York City every so often, but Frutarom and North Bergen beg to differe. Frutarom sent an e-mail to the Star-Ledger, "We have been made aware of the statements made by Mayor Bloomberg this morning regarding the source of the maple-syrup odors in NYC. The naming of our company as one of those potentially contributing to this condition came as a surprise to us." more ›

The mysterious maple syrup smell made its first 2009 appearance early in the month, with dozens of smellings spanning Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. And now, as if to say good bye to January, we've had two smelling clusters: One on Tuesday night, concentrated around Hell's Kitchen and the eastern part of NJ, and the other last night, mostly in upper Manhattan and even in the Bronx. So... Yonkers, watch your back, the Maple Syrup Smell is coming for you?! Click on the map below for what our readers told us: more ›

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While the maple syrup smell remains a two-year-old mystery to us, 30 Rock entered the fray with a hypothesis. On last night's episode, Liz Lemon, who smells waffles from her Upper West Side apartment, calls Tracy Jordan to remind him to practice his Re-Run dance for the What's Happening! sketch. But Tracy, in his NJ home, says that the smell of waffles is distracting him. Then Liz gets another call - it's Jack Donaghy,... more ›

A few readers let us know that they smelled the sickly sweet smell of a maple syrup-like substance last evening. Now, this brings back a flood of memories from 2005, when a maple syrup smell blanketed much of Manhattan. The smell, which has made return visits in early December 2005 aJanuary 2006, March 2006 and November 2006, leading us to believe this is a cold weather phenomena. One reader noted that it was detected around... more ›