SMELL: The fragrance of One World Observatory

[Note: This post was written just before the pandemic lockdown of spring 2020. I imagine that any noteworthy scents in the observatory today might be stifled by masks or, for certain patrons, by lingering COVID-related anosmia, or loss of smell.]

Some might not even notice it at first: a floral scent that wafts through the lobby of One World Observatory. 

The scent, named "One World," was designed by a fragrance manufacturer to evoke trees native to New York: to aromatically root the city's tallest building to the earth, 1,700 feet below, from behind hermetically sealed panoramic glass windows. Earth and sky, the high and the low, connected through each visitor's nose.

Just before the pandemic, in spring 2020, I decided to get a perspective on this elusive scent from those who spend all day immersed in it. First I talked to Michael, a security guard posted at the entrance to the One World Observatory elevator bank. "I guess it’s supposed to evoke New York?" he said, wrinkling his nose. "No, I’m not a fan," he said after a pause. "It’s a little much, to tell you the truth."

The perfume's citrus notes intensify as you proceed down a screen-lined hallway and stifle any damp, mineral-y smell one might expect in a tunnel carved through the actual bedrock supporting the 104-story tower.

The One World Scent is surreptitiously diffused through air conditioning vents—tucked behind skyline silhouettes—which frame the observatory's windows.

At the top of the elevator, as you make your through a gaggle of tour guides hawking the "One World Explorer iPad" upgrade, there are hints of dental office: mint, rubber. 

Near the café, the smell mingles with that of coffee and reheated pizza. A food service worker fans a paper plate over a grill of spinning hot dogs, sending curls of meaty steam into the One World mist.

In the gift shop, where two women in sun hats fondle sweatshirt sleeves, the smell acquires a hint of hot, floral dryer lint. Three women pressed to the window debate ordering an Uber to their dinner reservation at Cipriani.

When I asked a security guard named Kareem if he'd noticed the signature scent, he reflected a moment, then told me, "I don’t want to call it a 'new car smell,' but to me I guess it does smell new, clean. It’s an office smell—like, to help with the experience?" 

A man with a selfie stick extended his arm like an archer poised for a shot as a couple of backpacked women rummaged through brochures. All were within inches of the scent diffusers, but did they notice in the lofty air an essence of roots, of bark, of history? Dani, a "tour ambassador" in a red vest, pressed her lips closed when I asked her about the scent. “We’re not allowed to talk about it.”

SMELL: Ice skating and hot-tubbing... at the airport?

Sure, there are many unusual places to ice skate in New York City: by the seaside at Abe Stark Rink in Coney Island, on the rooftop of Brooklyn's William Vale Hotel, or in a narrow courtyard between buildings at Industry City. Last winter, there was even an ice rink tucked into the men's department at Bloomingdale's.

But this winter, the TWA Hotel—housed in the iconic Eero Saarinen terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport—has installed a Runway Rink.

How many chances will you have to ice skate right on the tarmac, in the shadow of a 1958 Lockheed Constellation plane–turned–cocktail bar, with the scent of jet fuel in the air? Though air travel is often marked by halting progress, here you can glide past the battalions of Smarte Cartes, the honking taxis and flashing hazard lights, the harried travelers bumping their suitcases over the curb.

Though the rink is just steps from JetBlue's Terminal 5 departures gates, you feel worlds away from with a box of Sno-Caps in your pocket (purchased from the rink-side ski chalet) and Beyoncé thumping through the loudspeakers.

The 56-by-44-foot rink is made from 3,500 gallons of New York City tap water kept frozen by tubes filled with coolant that run between the tarmac and the rink. A mini Zamboni makes the rounds every so often, keeping the surface slick.

On a recent Sunday, the rink was almost empty: just two tween girls choreographing selfie videos and an Orthodox Jewish family taking their toddlers for their first spins aboard complimentary plastic push-and-ride ice whales.

After a tour of the ice, you can retire to the plush red Sunken Lounge, where you can sip a Shirley Temple and watch the skaters spinning in circles through the canted windows, an uncanny sight at one of the largest airports in the country.

Or... you can head up to the 64-foot-long rooftop "infinity pool–cuzzi" overlooking one of the airport's busiest runways. The ninety-five-degree water splashes over the edge, seeming to cascade onto the tarmac, where planes roar past, lift into the sky, and bump down to earth. Steam rises from the 95-degree water, mingling with the scent of chlorine, jet fuel, tar, and rubber. Though during the summer months, the pool may require a day pass, it's free to all in the winter.

On a recent windy February afternoon, one corner of the pool was occupied by a plane spotter, margarita in hand, snapping photos as a Swiss Air jet soared into the air. Then a group of hipsters arrived, complete with New Yorker tote bags and knit beanies. "It wasn't so hard to get here," one of them said, bobbing in the water as an Iberia airlines jet taxied to the gate. "We just took the L train to the A...."

SMELL: The Alley Pond Giant, the oldest living organism in New York City

A few steps from the diesel roar of the Long Island Expressway, at the edge of Flushing’s Alley Pond Park, there grows a tulip poplar tree. Honestly, it’s not much to look at. Drifts of candy wrappers, torn homework pages, Amazon Prime packaging—the detritus of modern life—buffet the chain-link fence surrounding its base. Even its height, an impressive 134 feet, is masked by an adjacent embankment. You would not notice it if you were passing by on foot, much less in the Hampton Jitney.

This is the Alley Pond Giant, rumored to be not only New York City’s tallest tree but, at somewhere between 350 and 400 years of age, also the oldest living organism in the five boroughs. The tree is challenging to find, particularly in the warm months, when the forest shrouds it with foliage. I decided to visit in early spring, when its branches are still spindles against the sky.

After following a paved trail that skirts the shoulder of the expressway, I headed into the forest in what I hoped was the right direction and followed a faint path through the underbrush to the Giant.

Circling the tree, I found a narrow cavity, about twelve feet tall, that led into the hollowed-out base—it was unclear whether from fire or age or both. With utmost care to touch the tree as seldom and as reverently as possible, I slipped inside. The fumes of the highway, and all traces of the modern city, melted away as I was enveloped by the scent of history.

The air inside was loamy, redolent of leaf rot and earth, with a minerally tang. It was easy to imagine that the tree had smelled exactly like this for four centuries, and when, reputedly, George Washington passed close by on his tour of Long Island, and the Matinecock Indians shuffled past.

This being New York, many trees vie for superlative titles. In fact, the Parks Department has compiled a database of sixty of the city's Great Trees, and one intrepid fellow blogger has set out to visit them all. Besides the Alley Pond Giant, my favorite contestant is the self-proclaimed “World’s Most Famous Tree” located on a sleepy suburban block in Bergen Beach, Brooklyn, and maintained by one man for the past twelve years. (Needless to say, it is not included on the Parks Department list.)

Unlike some of its kin, the Alley Pond Giant is humble. It holds its secrets inside, in the furrows of its hollow trunk, in the scent and texture of its hoary bark. Like a true New Yorker, the Giant minds its own business as it lives and grows in increasingly unlikely surroundings, getting what it needs from the city's light and air, and from the unexpected visitors and messages that find their way to its roots.

SMELL: Seven smells for the seventh month

In Sense & the City tradition, I present a collection of seven sensory impressions for the seventh month, this year with a focus on local smells, both iconic and underappreciated.

1. Golden Gate Fancy Fruits & Vegetables, Flatlands, Brooklyn

Pre-war paint layers, fruit skins, old wood varnish, cardboard box, newsprint

2. Crushed ginkgo berries on sidewalks in autumn (here with collectors)

Acrid vomit

3. Metal buckets of road asphalt heating up curbside over a fire

Tar smoke, sticky blackness, butane

4. Glaser's Bake Shop, Upper East Side

Strudel, cinnamon, warm sugar, cool icing

5. Overthrow Boxing Club, SoHo

Sweat, leather, old sneaker, basement

6. Orange manhole steam chimneys

Hot air, mildew, wet cement

 7. Tottenville subway platform, last stop on Staten Island Railroad

Ocean

SMELL: An immersive candle experience in SoHo

What does SoHo smell like in the winter? Wet wool, body lotion, something burning (pretzels? chestnuts?), damp stone, corrugated cardboard, rubber, perfume, steam. One thing SoHo can usually be counted on not to smell like, though, is theme-scented candles, the scourge of Christmas Tree Shops and suburban malls.

So when I started seeing ads for Yankee Candle’s “immersive pop-up shop,” Candle Power NYC, in an empty storefront on lower Broadway, I felt obliged to investigate. The shop promised to transport me from New York City’s holiday hubbub to a snowy forest, a cozy library, a rose garden, a beach, and a Zen oasis, all through the power of scent. One recent afternoon, I stepped through a curtain of wicks into a vast space filled with flickering candles, R&B, and a path that wended between different set pieces, all touting different scent themes.

Each scene was chaperoned by a sort of candle maître’d who offered to take photos and supply the correct promotional hashtag, #candlepowernyc. It was evident this place was built more for selfies than candle shopping, intended to pull Yankee Candle out of the mall and into upscale retail.

The first scene was a winter wonderland representing the Balsam & Cedar candle. I clomped across a wooden footbridge through a forest of plywood trees and hills; above, screen-clouds displayed images of people sledding and building snowmen. Birdsong twittered. Plumes of a piney scent wafted between the branches.

Next up was a library turned 90 degrees askew: the furniture, lamps, and bookcases were attached to the walls, creating an opportunity for trippy Instagram poses. A (digital) fireplace represented the Woodwick candle, with a wooden wick that crackles as it burns. The signature fragrance here was Fireside, and the guide told me it smelled like “cardamom, or something like that.” And usually reading by the fire is cozier when the armchair is on the ground.

From the library I passed into the Mind & Body room, where, via a touchscreen, I could choose what I wanted to see and smell: videos of falling leaves, a koi pond, and a Zen sand garden corresponded with the Peace + Tranquility (“cashmere jasmine”) and Reflection + Clarity (“sea salt sage”) candles. 

Then it was off to the beach: palm trees, beach chairs, and a faux pool (no diving!) engulfed by the Sun & Sand candle. I couldn’t imagine actually burning this scent indoors, but the sunscreen-y smell did transport me to a beach.

Last, I stepped into an Alice in Wonderland–esque rose garden, complete with giant flowers and mirrors and infused with Apricot Rose scent. I padded across green-carpet grass and nuzzled my nose into the petals.

At the back of the room were a few tables displaying a quartet of candles meant to evoke distinctive New York City smells. “Fall in Central Park” did not incorporate the aromas of carriage-horse droppings, taxi fumes, or decaying leaves, but it did have mossy notes. “New York City at Dawn” was accurate perhaps if you’re awakening in a plush boudoir: no dog pee or garbage juice here, but instead “plum and rose petals paired with pink peppercorn and amber.” The “SoHo” candle promised to “encapsulate the exclusive SoHo environment” in “black amber with rustic notes of tobacco, musk, and mandarin.”

But “City Lights” did somehow manage to generate an "electrical" smell from its mix of “black sesame, patchouli, and balsam.” Extending the glass jar for a sniff, the weary candle chaperone suggested, “It’s for the city that never sleeps?” 

Candle Power NYC is now closed, but check out the website for a virtual (and scent-free) experience.

SMELL: Suspended Forest, an installation of discarded Christmas trees

For certain empathetic New Yorkers, the beginning of January can be bittersweet for an entirely different reason than the usual. In the first weeks of the year, the Christmas trees that have been the center of many homes—that have been bedecked with stars and candles, that have had carols sung around them, that have sheltered gifts and been touched by the mystical presence of Santa Claus—are cast out onto the sidewalk, to be rained, snowed on, peed on by dogs (and possibly humans), and eventually chucked into the back of a mulcher or sanitation truck, perhaps with bits of tinsel or even a stray homemade ornament still clinging to their branches.

In response to this annual abomination, for the past few years the local artist Michael Neff has been collecting a sampling of discarded Christmas trees from the streets of Brooklyn and displaying them. In 2012 and 2013, he hung them illegally from a drainpipe beneath the BQE, but the installation was fleeting, as the trees were promptly removed by the city. 

Image from Reyclart.com

This year, Neff found an authorized home for his trees at Maspeth’s Knockdown Center. Until the end of January, forty spruce trees will hang from strings from the rafters of the cavernous warehouse, filling the space with their resinous, tangy scent. 

In contrast to Neff's previous collections, most of this year’s trees remained unsold by vendors. They are, in other words, rejected Christmas trees: trees that were chopped down but never had the chance to be at the center of a home or to be strung with lights and serenaded, trees that were dismissed at the sidewalk stand with a “too short” or “too sparse” or “not fragrant enough.” This twist makes the installation all the more poignant: rather than giving already-celebrated trees an extra month of homage, this display is these trees’ moment to shine.

The spruce trees are arranged in a grid, spaced so that visitors brush against the branches as they wend between their pendulous forms, often releasing a cascade of dead needles, which are crushed by the feet of others, releasing yet more of the woody aroma. 

Suspended like this, the trees are at once triumphant and vulnerable. They are subject to the whims of passersby as they rotate helplessly on their strings a foot above the floor, yet they are also celebrated as these same visitors admire their scent, caress their needles, even lie down on the floor beneath their branches for a moment of stillness or meditation.

As I lost myself in the evergreen labyrinth, I heard a child remark, “This is like being in a car wash!” Which it was, with the bristles brushing against my coat on either side. Though several young guests were scolded by a guard for cavorting between the trees (really, who could blame them?), touching the branches appeared to be condoned, and it was surprisingly satisfying to take hold of a tree and give it a spin, feeling how lightweight yet substantial it was, how responsive, and how fast it spun—almost like a partner in a dance.

The fragrant and contemplative space contrasts with the neighborhood just outside the gallery’s windows, which smells of diesel fumes, tire rubber, and cheap baked goods from the surrounding warehouses and factories. But even industrial Maspeth isn’t immune to post-holiday nostalgia: in mid-January, illuminated snowflakes still swayed above Flushing Avenue.

Later that evening, taking a stroll through Brooklyn, I saw a family of three carrying their Christmas tree to the designated MulchFest drop-off site at the corner of a park. The tree was suspended between the mom and the dad; their daughter hung on behind, and their dog, on a leash, trotted alongside them. Their faces were dutiful—yet it was a family affair, everyone connected, leaving a trail of spruce needles in their wake that, briefly, perfumed the air.

Suspended Forest is on view through January 31, on Saturdays and Sundays from 2 to 6 pm,  at Knockdown Center, 52-19 Flushing Avenue in Maspeth, Queens.