Stuytown Stench

Stop and Smell the Stench

Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days of the summer. The sky was blue, the clouds fluffy white puffs, the sun warm and gentle, the breeze singing. A perfect day for walking in the park, and there I was, feeling lucky to be
surrounded by all the beauty of  Stuyvesant Town. If only the perfection of the moment were not marred by the awful stench.

I'm calling it the Stuytown Stench but it's all over Peter Cooper Village too.

It's especially noticeable on a close, muggy day. The other day they had apparently just laid down more of the foul-smelling fertilizer they're using this year, and each gentle waft of breeze which should have been a flowery delight,  was instead an insult to my nose.  Not sure what it is, but they obviously never smelled it before they ordered  it, and they apparently bought a TON of it.

I'm wondering what's in there to make the smell so pungent? One year the fertilizer smelled  like a walk in a forest, and I think it might have been composed of cedar chips. It was lovely! The fertilizer this year has more of an animal smell.  I'm imagining the streets of  New York 100 years ago, when the smell of  horse dung on a sweltering summer day must have been suffocating.

Personal disclaimer: as a reformed smoker, I seem to have developed an especially sensitive sense of smell, which may be stronger than that of most people, but certainly not as strong as that of an animal. So if it bothers my nose, I'm wondering how it affects the dogs of  PCVST? They say a dog's sense of smell is up to 500 times stronger than ours, and a bear's sense of smell is 10-20 times that of a dog! Where does a squirrel's sense of smell fit on the spectrum?

"The sensitivity and discrimination of their olfactory apparatus is astounding"
 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=squirrels-sniffing-distin

Of course Doggy gets to retire back to a nice A/C-cooled apartment after taking a brief walk in the park a couple times a day to do his duty. But what about the squirrels, who cannot escape the foul air, and must breathe it 24/7?  Is it not adding insult to the injury of the heat?

Another problem is where they spread the fertilizer, which is often around the base of a tree - the squirrels' stomping ground, where they tend to spend most of the time when out of the tree.

Oh please, please somebody tell PCVST  to use this fertilizer again NOT!! I've spoken with some of the groundskeepers who can't stand it either. Hopefully the word - if not the smell itself - gets back to Management.

I do smell all horse-piss; at which my nose is in great indignation.

The Tempest, 4. 1