Being Nosey: Exploring the Smelly Chaos of the Upper West Side

by Yvonne Vávra

I met my friend Sylvi at the corner of 85th and Amsterdam last week, which was a huge surprise, considering she lives in Germany. It wasn’t really her, but rather, the smell of sharp citrus cleaner mixed with garbage drifting from the building’s trash area that brought her back to me.

That didn’t sound right, let me rephrase. The smell took me back to an epic laughing fit we had when she visited a few years ago. She had suddenly stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and taken a deep breath, eyes closed, looking blissful. Something about the scent had caught her, and she was trying to follow it back to a happy place in her memory. What was it?

Trash. Trash soaked in heavy-duty disinfectant, piled at our feet. Now that smell is forever tied in my mind to a moment of pure laughter when we realized that a stink can turn into roses, if it’s wrapped in the right memory.

Smelling is fun. Yet we rarely think of it that way. Unless a scent is especially delightful or offensive, we barely notice it. And when we try to put what we smell into words, we struggle. Describe a bagel? Sure, I’ll happily walk you through every detail. Describe the smell of salmon? Hm. Fishy. That’s about as far as I get.

I came across a smell map created by illustrator Jason Logan for the New York Times in the summer of 2009. Navigating the city by nose, he attached distinctive scents to specific places. In Central Park, he walked through a “delicious curry” at Strawberry Fields, and smelled birds, toasted oats, and childhood on the wildflower meadow at the 102nd Street Cross Drive. Also: notes of geese, horses, and pungent Chihuahua.

I was intrigued. What’s more, there’s a direct path from our sense of smell to the regions of the brain tied to emotion and memory. Smells can expand our world, shift our mood, and spark creativity. German poet and philosopher Friedrich Schiller, for example, stored rotten apples in his desk drawer. The stink inspired him. Couldn’t write a word without it, his wife reported.

I didn’t want to miss out any longer. Time to hit the streets and sniff things out.

I started at 104th and Broadway with the smell of cigarettes, courtesy of a tall man in a fedora and an orange checkered scarf—appropriately dramatic for the opening credits of this walk.

By 102nd, I’d already hit my first challenge and nearly hyperventilated. I was sniffing too eagerly, trying to track down something that smelled like kiwi ice cream. I failed. But a few steps later, Silver Moon Bakery restored my confidence with a clear, unmistakable note of cookies. Then came the sticky beer-floor whiff drifting out of Broadway Dive, all wrapped in that special concoction only scaffolding can provide. And I was only at 101st. What a block.

I crossed Broadway, excited for a wave of Schatzie Prime Meats, but smelled nothing. However, a nearby dog refused to move, nose glued to the ground, which suggested the failure was mine. At 100th Street: a musty draft from a gaping hole in the sidewalk, disappointingly nothing from Metro Diner, but a surprising, potato-chip-like scent from the pet store next door.

At 96th, things escalated. Wendy’s fried everything collided with the sweet freshness of a fruit stand. Had I even lived before? One block down, I passed the McDonald’s that made local news in 2022 for pumping the smell of Big Macs and fries straight into residents’ windows at 255 West 95th. Or Sausage McMuffins, depending on the time of day.

I turned onto Amsterdam. At 94th, I passed two women leaving a trail of intense floral scent, and at 93rd, the Hostos Houses wrapped me in the cleanest, freshest laundry imaginable.

Further downtown: wet concrete at 88th Street’s construction site, a whiff of pickle at Barney Greengrass, and ocean-breezy window cleaner at Cindy’s Nails. The Dead Poet at 81st preened with a freshly disinfected sidewalk, but I only had nose for the guy carrying pizza. For two blocks, I followed him like a bloodhound.

On 74th, I passed the last of many bodega flower displays, sending me off with a nose full of joy. I felt lightheaded as I walked toward Columbus — I’d been breathing in too much of the world too quickly. But I had one more stop: KT Collection, on the corner of 73rd, where they sell the scent of the Upper West Side in a candle. One more big inhale: a fresh blend of Indian sandalwood, cardamom, ginger, violet, and musks poured into my brain, or so I was informed. It smelled lovely, but I still preferred the raw Upper West Side I had just experienced: that fragrant chaos, washed in disinfectant, laundry, and window cleaner, layered with cookies, beer, fried food, fresh fruit, flowers, and cigarette smoke. Plus cars, cars everywhere.

Walking the streets with my nose wide open got me a little closer to the Upper West Side. To my dog, too. Now I can relate when he’s in sniffing mode, completely absorbed and trembling with focus, like he’s watching the Succession finale. There’s a whole world out there we usually ignore, which might be a smart move in this town. But the more senses we use, the more chances we get to run into an old friend who’s far away. And if it happens over the whiff of garbage, all the better.

Yvonne Vávra is a magazine writer and author of the German book 111 Gründe New York zu lieben (111 Reasons to Love New York). Born a Berliner but an aspiring Upper West Sider since the 1990s (thanks, Nora Ephron), she came to New York in 2010 and seven years later made her Upper West Side dreams come true. She’s been obsessively walking the neighborhood ever since.

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