A foul smell grows in city By JOSE MARTINEZ DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER It's not just the heat, it's the stink. In this week's scorching temperatures, New Yorkers don't just have to sit by the air conditioning - they sometimes need to hold their noses, too. "There's no question the ly groan," said deliveryman city gets a lot riper in the heat," Glenn Drake, 38, of Astoria, said City Councilman David Queens. Yassky, who serves on the Hold your nose too in Hunts Sanitation Committee. Point in the Bronx, where odors From fish markets to subway waft from any direction. stations, New York in the summertime has a ... well, distinctive odor. The Daily News sniffed around town and came up with some of these real trouble spots. At the Fulton Fish Market in Manhattan, a whiff of the catch of the day can float to the Brooklyn Bridge, the FDR Drive or into nearby high-rises. "It's a wonderful mixture of fish, sewage and rotting trash," said jeweler of Manhattan. The smell regulars. "Anytime an order starts with Flushing Bay Fulton Promenade Fish Market TEEN BROOKLYN * SIX SICKENING SITES® Coney Island boardwalk 30 ARESAN MICHAEL SCHWARTZ The Fulton Fish Market emits unbearable stench. Steven Tonon, 60, stinks," Fernandez of even offends the That's what Stadium, where my boss gives me Bay Promenade and the destination and an old odor. 'Fulton,' I immediate- Despite a The peninsula houses waste transfer stations, trucks from massive markets and an organic fertilizer plant that handles sewer sludge - which create a powerful mix of smells. " When n there's no wind, oh man, that smell just lays here," said Irving Higgins, 42, as he fished off the Tiffany St. Pier in the South Bronx. "It's like a blanket of smell." "It stinks, it stinks, it grumbled Nicky Hunts Point. they say by Shea the Flushing has a new look makeover last year that put new asphalt and benches on the 1.4-mile esplanade from Shea Stadium to LaGuardia Airport, the smell of sewage that's lingered for decades remains. "When it's low tide, you don't want to be here," said Jose Garcia, 76, who enjoys sitting on the promenade. The smells go underground in other spots, such as in a corner of the Times Square subway station near the Grand Central shuttle. "It's a back way in the station, but it's got quite the mix of odors," said Straphangers Campaign director Gene Russianoff. No escape at beach While the advocacy group praises the Transit Authority for cleaning up the subway system, some stations retain their smells. "The worst are the ones that people have decided are rest rooms," Russianoff said. Brooklyn's fabled boardwalk draws thousands of beachgoers on summer days, but the smell beneath the planks is no day at the beach. Visitors deposit trash under the boardwalk and some even avoid public rest rooms and urinate in the sand. "You just walk around the odor's too strong," said Raman Munoz, 18, of Williamsburg Brooklyn. Some of the city's smells are mysterious - no one is guild sure where they come from Along Eighth V 138 Chelsea, for instance, the Transit Authority and city. Department of Environmental Protection have cleaned out subway and sewer grates. But a persistent stench keeps coming back, passersby and local officials said. "Most of the time, I get the most pleasant smell at this job," said florist Anthony Zacharia, 31. "But on the hottest days, if a strong breeze comes along, I feel like I'm sitting next to a garbage dump." Still, most New Yorkers have learned to accept the unpleasant smells along with the sweltering temperatures - as something they just have to live with. "The smell definitely gets worse in the summertime," said Fred Hoo, 42, a dry cleaner in Chelsea. "But what can you do? It's New York City."
