Mysterious sweet smell returns to Manhattan, without explana

[emad]

Mysterious sweet smell returns to Manhattan, without explanation<br> <br> <br> <br>BY LUIS PEREZ<br>STAFF WRITER<br><br><br>The Sweet Smell came back.<br><br>Call it molasses- or maple syrup-like, the mysterious fragrance that confounded the noses of perhaps thousands of New Yorkers seven weeks ago returned to several spots in Manhattan Thursday.<br> <br>Once again, no one knew what it was.<br><br>"Sweet," said Ian Michaels, a spokesman for the city department of environmental protection, which received a handful of calls Thursday afternoon from lower Manhattan to midtown. He added: "We keep sheets here for phone calls that we get and it's just, 'sweet, sweet, sweet.'"<br><br>Dozens of calls also came in to 311, and 911 Thursday afternoon, and by 4 p.m., the city's office of Emergency Management was once again acting as the sweet smell sleuth, coordinating the efforts of multiple agencies. "We have reports of it above 96th street," said Jarrod Bernstein, a spokesman for the office of emergency management. "Maple syrup. Same as last time."<br><br>By all accounts, the smell tsunami seemed to center in the center of Manhattan this time around. A fire department spokesman said a rash of calls came in from the West 40s; Michaels said one lone call came from Maiden Lane, near Wall Street.<br><br>On Oct. 27th -- also a Thursday -- reports of the smell concentrated south of midtown, with an abundance of calls around City Hall and Chelsea. By the next morning, the smell had shifted to entice olfactory senses in Astoria, Brooklyn and Staten Island. Officials deemed it harmless, if mysterious.<br><br>Thursday was a windy day, increasing the possibility that the smell was more widely dispersed, officials said.<br><br>Before nightfall, though, a crew of workers from the Environmental Protection Agency tested air samples in midtown, finding nothing harmful in the air. Tests were to continue throught the night.<br><br>But the city's sophisticated air-testing equipment can only identify substances.. It cannot tell you what the smell is.<br><br>"It's a mystery," said Michaels.<br><br>Jose Espinoza didn't have any answers. The last time the sweet smell turned up, Espinoza, 24, had been in the cargo area of his truck on West 37th Street and Seventh Avenue. The overnight deliverman was there again Thursday, but said he didn't smell anything this time.<br><br>"It smelled like pancake syrup, like a bakery," Espinoza, of Washington Heights, said of the last scent storm.<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/manhattan/nyc-smel1209,0,5226916.story?coll=nyc-moreny-headlines">www.nynewsday.com/news/lo...-headlines</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br> <p></p><i></i>

[Et in Arcadia ego]

Something that ubiquitous would seem to only have 2 points of origin:<br><br>The sewer system or:<br><br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://www.chemtrails.ch/images/chemtrails_08.jpg" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--> <p></p><i></i>

[chillin]

Someone mentioned to me today that some places are using a molasses-based product to de-ice roads, I googled this:<br><br>"SUGAR BEETS: Molasses product touted as road salt alternative<br><br>Product doesn't corrode like salt<br><br>Associated Press<br><br>LINCOLN, Neb. - The saying, "Slow as molasses in January," loses most of its meaning when you're driving on it.<br><br>A de-icing product made from sugar beet-based molasses from western Nebraska is being touted as a noncorrosive alternative to winter road salt.<br><br>The organic origins of the product marketed as Geomelt make it a good alternative to corrosive salt, said Galen Kauzlarich, who serves Nebraska customers from a distribut<br><br>ion point in Knoxville, Iowa.<br><br>The product is manufactured by Grain Processing Corp., based in Muscatine, Iowa. The company also makes Mountain Melt, a de-icer that uses corn-based ingredients..."<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/13260277.htm">www.grandforks.com/mld/gr...260277.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>I wonder if this de-icer smells like a yummy stack of pancakes? <p></p><i></i>

[Et in Arcadia ego]

I'd be gratified to see that as the responsible agent. <p></p><i></i>

[FourthBase]

If you're ever in the North End near the Garden, you might smell molasses, too. But that's because one afternoon in 1919 a gigantic tank holding 2.3 million gallons of molasses collapsed and unleashed a 15-foot-high tsunami of molasses that killed 21 people, swallowed countless horses, demolished buildings, and turned the surrounding neighborhoods into a black, wet, sticky war zone. Supposedly on a steaming summer day you can still catch a whiff of molasses.<br><br>Funny enough, the molasses was used to make industrial alcohol for the war effort, and government officials blamed the collapse on an explosion set off by Italian anarchists. Collapse or explosion, a wave of debris flowing down streets in broad daylight, firefighters killed, terrorists blamed...Nothing new under the sun, I guess. <p></p><i></i>