0 People have been here:

Description:

Storefront Tour, Location 1

Thank you for joining the Smelling Committee today, over 100 years after the Committee’s first olfactory expedition, to map out some of the odors that are here in this neighborhood of New York City.

For a touch of history, I will bring you back to 1891 when, “Irritated by the foul stenches that wafted through their northeast Brooklyn neighborhood, members of the Fifteenth Ward Smelling Committee embarked on a boat trip up Newtown Creek in September… in search of the responsible parties. They reached a point across from the oil refineries where ‘the stenches began asserting themselves with all the vigor of fully developed stenches.’ What the Smelling Committee quickly discovered was that an unusually heavy concentration of industrial activity… had transformed the area around Newtown Creek into an ecological wasteland.” The Committee deemed the Creek the most polluted body of water in the State of New York, and it remains one of the most polluted rivers in the country today.

We will not be venturing all the way to Newtown Creek today, but we’re going to investigate what else is smelling in the city. The locations corresponding to each audio track are suggestions only. Your duty is to mark your own findings on your map, along with any pertinent information and associations you may have with a particular odor. Please use the blank side to map locations, such as your own neighborhood, that are not included on the front. Members who return their mapped findings to Storefront for Art & Architecture will be inducted into the Smelling Committee with the receipt of an official badge.

Photos:

Maps:

Smelling Committee

Tags:

smell , art , new york , nolita , odor , smelling committee