Summer Days...or, What Is That Smell!?!

New York is, as usual at this time of year, a sweltering mess. And it seems to me a singulary New York experience to be surrounded by some of the most stylishly dressed, sexy women in the world (wearing next to nothing, but doing it with such panache) - and all one can think about how the street smells to high heaven.

Not fifteen minutes ago, I left my office (that's the view from the office above, looking North on broadway) and braved the streets of lower broadway to attempt picking up my bicycle from the bike shop (more on that fiasco later). Not suprisingly, it was positively teeming with bodies - tourists, sweaty business guys in suits jackets, mother/daughter shopping drop teams equipped with the latest in modern consumer hardware, Greenpeace ruffians, and many more. Despite the heat of the early afternoon sun, they soldiered on, in search of what I'm never quite sure. Shopping requires a certain mindset - much like golf. If you're not feeling it, you're not feeling.

In any event, in walking East on Prince Street, I had the ill fortune of crossing Crosby Street. And it was there that I encountered a smell unlike anything have smelled since - College. In the basement of a certain fraternity to which I once swore my allegiance. The whole house smelled, but the vilest stench of all dwelled in the basemnt, where the beer taps were located. Down there, in the dingy dark whole where we went to drink daily, there was a closet. The Keg Closet, located behind the taps. Where all of the excess spilled beer would run, thanks to a non-functioning drain pipe, and the fact that it sat at the lowest point in the basement. We would keep it locked most days, lest we lose any one to the dank, black bile that would coagulate there. A heinous bacterial experiment gone wrong - inky black with bits of white jetsam on its surface. And the smell. The smell was - indescribable. It would cling to the insides of your nose, and linger for days. It was enough to drive a man, or woman, mad. My friends and I almost killed each other one summer's day, mopping that closet out. But that is another story entirely.

But Crosby street, with all of it's posh euro shoopers and hip downtown denizens, smelled that damn bad. I nearly vomited. I love New York with a passion, but sometimes the smell is too much even for me.