From The New York Shitty Inbox: What’s That Smell?

(Another) Heather writes: Do you know what the gas smell is near Norman and Humboldt??? It’s very unpleasant and happening daily; seems to be coming from either Syrena Bakery or the water treatment plant. Just curious.

The funny thing I have observed about living a hop-skip from our waste treatment plant is I rarely smell it. Inasmuch as I can ascertain, McGuinness Boulevard serves as some kind of buffer. For this reason I welcome more “luxury” condos on Brooklyn’s “Boulevard of Death”.

Let the fine people who have the ability to pay $2,000+ a month in rent for “luxury” apartments have the honor of quaffing this stench from their balconies whilest watching more pedestrians and bicyclists being struck by speeding motorists. It’ll be just like ancient Greece, the spectacles of Rome and Death Race 2000 combined. How could I, a simple citizen living in a rent-stabilized apartment, deny them this genuinely Greenpoint experience? But I digress.

I promised Heather that while I had my suspicions as to where the smell was coming from (READ: the waste treatment plant) that I would consult an expert. I did. Here’s what she had to say:

At Norman & Humboldt it could be just about anything. That’s TCE, Oil, Sewage, Solid Waste territory.
But this person should :

1. Call 311 and state that you are making an “odor complaint” regarding the “Newtown Creek Water Pollution Control Plant” area
2. Get a reference number
3. Email the reference number to Christine Holowacz (NCMC liaison— That’s the Newtown Creek Monitoring Authority— Ed. Note) at nc (dot) mc (at) verizon (dot) net

DEP has been very helpful in the past sorting out where smells are originating. Many times it’s coming from them, but many times it isn’t.

It is the “isn’t” that should bother you, dear readers. If you smell something, SAY SOMETHING.

In closing I’d like like to give props to the person whose art work graces this post. It comes from Very Small Array and is one of four cartoons that were rejected by The New Yorker. In 2006.

It’s 2010. Greenpoint has (for reasons which mystify some of its own residents) gained the sinecure as the fifth most livable neighborhood in New York City. We’ve come up in the world. It’s time for a new ditty:

We are Greenpoint, hear us roar.
With a stench you can’t ignore!

Shame on you, New Yorker, for your lack of vision— or would that be olfaction? Change has come! You can smell it in the wind. No worries, you get used to it after awhile.

Miss Heather