hot garbage, summer in the city

There are a few things you can count on in NYC. Like garbage and urine.

I don’t mean to suggest that New York is alone in this. In certain parts of Asia I visited it seemed that garbage pyramids were a legitimate form of architecture. And in Amsterdam in saw etched Roman columns with a Latin inscription translating to: "Humans do not pee in the streets."

But of all the cities in the US I’ve lived in, I’ve never noticed it as much as I do here. Piles of garbage bags, glossy and bulging with refuse, lay outside of many establishments for pick-up. The curb serves as a mini-dump until the trash man comes to take it all away. And, as garbage often does, it smells. Actively.

Urine is noticeable in two places—sidewalks and subway stations. The sidewalks feature the tinklings of the city’s enormous dog population—tiny rivulets of Rover’s leg-lifter. The streams run downhill toward the curb, with little tributaries shooting off as it makes its way to the street. And of course the subway has its occasional P Trains, though you won’t find them on an MTA map. You don’t even see them that often, but you know they are there. It’s the smell, you see.

Which is why I am bringing this up now, as opposed to some other time of the year. It is summer. Things get hot in the summer. Heat amplifies odor.

The summer heat makes these smells powerful—spinach-to-Popeye strong. Their stench does not gently waft in these lazy summer months—it attacks, rends, suffocates. In the right concentrations, it affects brain function—removing all other thoughts from your head except “How can I get up these subway stairs without breathing?” In another instance, you might be walking down the street to get some food. You pass a stack of plastic bags, and before you know it the pungent clouds of Eau de Rotten Cabbage have stolen your appetite.

It is just another part of the city’s sensory scope, and I accept it. But when the mild chill of Fall comes, I will appreciate the nasal vacation.