Brooklyn smells bad this week. No, we’re not talking about the ever-present smell of shower-averse Bushwickians. This is the real deal, a smell so bad some feared the devil himself had come to Brooklyn in hot, steaming vengeance.
“We’re hearing about a sulphuric, gates of hell, low tide stink all over Brooklyn today? Who smells it?” asked the bloggers at Brooklyn Based. Before long twitter was abuzz with similar complaints. “Raw sewage, aroma of skunk, base notes of natural gas wafting over crown heights all morning,” wrote one particularly scent-sensitive Brooklynite on Twitter.
It turns out the stench was, in fact, raw sewage. A manhole collapsed on Tuesday in Bed-Stuy, Gothamist reported. Workers had to pump sewage (the brave souls!) from the site to fix the issue. The incident happened just in time for the hottest days of summer, further polluting an area already populated by a demographic preferring Tom’s all-natural deodorant to real antiperspirant.
“Let me put it this way,” said a representative from the Department of Environmental Protection, “we received a call on Tuesday and it was a collapsed manhole sewer. A DEP contractor is working on repairing it. It could be age… there are many, many reasons.
“The New York sewage system is one of the oldest ones the country,” she added proudly.
The DEP workers are still working on repairs. We don’t envy that task.
