There are plenty of "distinctive" scents in the city. From stinky restaurants to the herbal recreation that your upstairs neighbor partakes in, there's no escaping the smells. But at least the typical scents don't cause mass amounts of people to head to the hospital, like the chemical fumes at a cellphone company did yesterday. more ›

Everyone's favorite part of autumn is romantically watching the leaves change color and fall to the ground, a la When Harry Met Sally, right? The residents of New Hyde Park Queens are less appreciative: Locals complain that their streets well, stink, and the culprit is the female ginko tree, which yields a fruit that produces a controversial odor. The formidable fruits have been endearingly termed vomit berries, poop berries, and, our favorite, jizz berries. (This isn't the first time the ginko has attacked Queens.) more ›

Earlier this month, the city vowed to cut ties with New York Organic Fertilizer Company, which was responsible for an odious smell that left residents in Hunts Point feeling very fowl. Well, don't inhale too deeply yet Hunts Point residents: the NYOFCO isn't planning on going anywhere. Even if the city does terminate their contract in June, as was promised, the company will try importing sludge from elsewhere. They also plan to try to salvage the agreement with the city with deeper discounts. more ›

Residents of Hunts Point in the Bronx may at last be rid of a decades-old stench that on hot days makes the area smell “like a decaying body.” The city says it will end it $34 million-a-year contract with the organic fertilizer company, from whose premises the smell emanates. “This is a huge victory,” said Rep. José E. Serrano, a longtime opponent from the plant, which is in his district. “It was horrible—the smell, the stench. People living in the poorest Congressional district in the nation, in many cases with very little education, knew this was something they could not tolerate.” According to the Times opponents of the plant name the smell as “a symbol of the city’s disregard for Hunts Point.” more ›

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? more ›