The Big Apple Needs A Bath
Manhattan has every variety of food and does it as well
as the originating country. It has shows of every kind. It has people from every
walk of life. It has great views, fabulous culture, and tremendous opportunity.
Being here is electric and you feel like you could fly. It just smells so
unbelievably bad.
Let's start with the worst: the subway. Now I love the convenience of the NYC
subway. It really gets you around. In the summer, however, it is the most
sickening stench that I can imagine. It smells like urine all year. It's the
same in summer, only it seems to be cooking in the heat and rising off of the
floor. If you've ever wondered what it's like to be peed on, go take the G train
and you'll probably wonder no more. But any line will do. The smell pollutes the
whole system. It can be smelled within 20 feet of station entrances and rarely
goes away once you get down there.
There is trash all through the streets. In fact, that's where people throw their
garbage. That is to say, garbage bags are SUPPOSED to be piled in the street.
Other cities I've lived in don't do this. The trash smells really are putrid. No
rotting smell the world over has ever been so annoying as your neighborhood
garbage day. When the wind blows, you can smell it a clear block away. The wind
blows a fair bit here.
Then the shit smells. There really are a lot of dogs here, and people just don't
clean up enough. No matter how many do, there invariably seems to be enough to
cause a serious dog shit problem. And dog shit smells, you know, like shit. As
bad as the dog shit is, it's nothing compared to the horses in central park.
And I suspect some of the shit likely belongs to the homeless. Whether or not
they are indeed shitting in the street, they are definitely amongst the groups
depositing the urine in the streets and subways as a little gift to society.
Even beside this, homeless people often smell like they missed the sidewalk the
last few times.
Though they clean the shit and collect the garbage, the impact is made on the
sewage. There are sewage grates around the sidewalks all throughout this city,
and, as you pass them, you will sometimes smell something that seems to be a
combination of all the aforementioned rosy smells.
As if the frequent smells of piss, dog shit, garbage, unwashed homeless, and
sewage weren't bad enough, I was walking down the street yesterday and felt wet
stuff falling on my head. It was cold, so I thankfully figured it wasn't urine.
I didn't know what it was though, and it's really not a nice feeling. (I found
out later it was actually an air conditioner leaking water. It doesn't change
much.)
I always forget just how smelly and disgusting New York really is. The stench
simply defies definition. The filth harasses the senses. It is vexing to behold,
and you wonder how these people put up with it every day. Then you remember it's
good for your immune system, plus the food and shows and culture and electric
feeling and what not.
And it makes enough sense, so you go out, take a whiz in the alley, and head to a show.
© 2006 FussyPucker.