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[bobf <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

Since We have professional and recreational botanists on the list; I thought 
someone might enjoy this story as much as I did.

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In New York City, an Aromatic Mystery Solved 

By MICHAEL BARBARO and NATE SCHWEBER

Published: February 5, 2009 

Baffled city investigators began calling them “maple syrup events”: 
mysterious waves of sweet-smelling air that periodically wafted over 
Manhattan, delighting some, troubling others and vanishing as quickly as they 
had arrived. 


After each episode — in 2005, 2006 and again this year — residents flooded 
the city’s 311 information hot line with calls. The city’s Department of 
Environmental Protection dispatched air testers. But nobody could pinpoint 
the smell — or its source. 

So the aroma was filed away as another vexing urban mystery, never to be 
solved. 

Until now.

The city revealed on Thursday that the culprit was the seeds of fenugreek, a 
cloverlike plant, which are used to produce fragrances at a factory across 
the Hudson River in North Bergen, N.J. It turned out that the city had never 
given up trying to determine the aroma’s origin. It had quietly created a 
crack maple-syrup team that remained on the case. 

The North Bergen factory, owned by a company called Frutarom, used the herbal 
seeds to manufacture food flavors, releasing a pungent, generally pleasant 
smell in the process. Under the right weather conditions — high humidity, no 
rain — the aroma drifts across the Hudson onto the West Side of Manhattan. 

“I think it’s safe to say that the mystery of the maple syrup mist has been 
solved,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said at a news conference at City Hall, 
cautioning that the city was still investigating several leads.

Fenugreek produces seeds and leaves that are used in a variety of cuisines, 
and are believed to have health benefits, like improving milk production in 
new mothers.

Frutarom, which is based is Israel, appeared to be blindsided by the mayor’s 
announcement. In a statement, the company said its apparent contribution to 
the recurring odor “came as a surprise to us.”

Mr. Bloomberg said the company did not appear to have violated any laws. But 
Frutarom’s factory has previously been penalized by the New Jersey Department 
of Environmental Protection. In 2006, it ordered Frutarom to pay a fine of 
nearly $450,000 for water and air quality violations, an agency spokeswoman 
said.

At the New Jersey factory on Thursday, the air was thick with a candylike 
scent. A secretary said, “Nobody has ever complained about the smells.”

The mystery began to unravel last month. After years of investigation, the 
city began developing a new system for tracking down the smell, should it 
revisit Manhattan. 

In the past, the city dispatched air testers with canisters to collect 
samples only after dozens of calls to 311 about the smell. When testers 
arrived, the smell had generally evaporated. 

So the city decided to take no chances with the next aroma report. They told 
investigators to keep the air testing technology with them at all times, to 
minimize delays. And they dispatched them after receiving just a handful of 
calls.

On Jan. 29, when calls began to trickle in about a sweet smell on the Upper 
West Side, the city swung into action. Four air testers captured samples — 
three on the West Side and one near the New Jersey entrance to the George 
Washington Bridge. 

The samples made their way to a laboratory, where Harry Mayer, the director 
of technical services at the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, 
spent 40 hours isolating the source of the scent, a compound known for its 
pleasant smell. 

He said in an interview that he immediately suspected that an industrial 
plant was to blame. “Maybe a fragrance or food-flavoring factory?” he 
recalled thinking. 

But which one? An analysis of all known maple syrup smell incidents revealed 
telling trends. Most of the complaints came from the Upper West Side and 
Morningside Heights. At the time, winds blew at a similar speed, from the 
west, “indicating that the source of the mysterious odor was Hudson or Bergen 
Counties in New Jersey,” Mr. Bloomberg said. 

The city’s Office of Emergency Management compiled a list of a dozen 
potential factories, three of which produced fragrances or food additives. 
Working with New Jersey environmental officials, city investigators narrowed 
the list to one — Frutarom, which had processed the seeds on Jan. 29. 

Neighbors of the factory were not surprised to hear about the traveling 
aroma. Chris Jenkins, 34, plant manager at North Bergen Asphalt Products, 
right next to Frutarom, said he detected the scent all day. “For the most 
part the smells are actually quite enjoyable,” he said. “Ooh, it makes you 
hungry.”

Depending on the day, he said, the smell resembles pancake syrup, cookies or 
fruit. 

None of those who work nearby seemed alarmed by the smell, and several 
wondered why Manhattanites, who lived considerably farther away, would 
complain about it. 

“New Yorkers smell a little smell and they’re getting all paranoid,” said Jay 
Beqej, 33, who works at the Fairview Public Works warehouse.





http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/nyregion/06smell.html?hp