Earlier this month, we learned which subway you're most likely to roast in, and today, another of the city's eternal questions gets (sort of) answered by New York Magazine, which deems Broome Street between Allen and Eldridge Streets "the smelliest block in New York."
It's described as a smelling alternately like "high meat and old squeegees" and a “flushed-out catacomb," "ripe and outlandish in a way that made a person feel perverted." At first, they thought the culprit was the Yu & Qiang Trading Inc. poultry shop, but a Department of Agriculture and Markets found the place infraction-free. They even bring along an "olfactory expert" to asses the situation, all to no avail. It's even worse than the "smell blasts" from Salaam Bombay in Tribeca! Bowery Boogie's been harping on the block for some time now, telling New York “Not even the most disgusting subway smell compares. I try not to eat while walking there, since I’d probably throw up.”
We placed a fruitless call to 311 to speak with the Environment and Sanitation Department about other blocks that have received odor complaints, though an informal poll revealed that Crosby Street between Spring and Broome Streets is "constantly festering—it's the garbage alley for all of Broadway;" and most of Canal Street all through Chinatown is notoriously fetid. What blocks make you want to gag?
