The Washington times., 1923-03-25


the east the passfhg traffic on busy East
River announced itself by binding clouds
of soft coal smoke mingled with sulphur
Gus fumes which swirled against the
houses near the river and swept up the
streets toward fashionable Park Avenue.
And in foggy days, the medley of
whistles of putting towboats and big
ships rent the air like the strident notes
of circus calliope.
The residents near the river front could
tell the time of day by the long pro-
cession Of Sound steamboats,, both freight
and passenger, which begin their upward
passage through He'll Gate about i've
o'clock, and the last of them has not
passed until shutdown. And again in the
early hours of the morning, from dawn
until breakfast, similar procession of
Sound steamers swept down the river,
footing their whistles and literally be-
sprinkling the neighborhood with smoke
and fumes from their erupting tunnels.
But the half dozen great slaughter
houses massed to the south, and the street
cleaning dump and the steam heat factor
les on the north and the noisy and some
times smelly river on the east, were not
all. Here and there through the neigh
borhood were sprinkled many other in
dustries, some of which had their own
peculiar, unique, individual SMELL There
were stables which sent out into the air
the smell which everybody knows; there
were factories with acrid, astringent
fumes; there were the ammonia gases
from ice plants and there were the sitting
smells of gas works.
And, as these various strongholds of
smells little and smells big and smells
peculiar were scattered here and there at
strategic points throughout the westerly
portion of the neighborhood, they were
able to throw their batteries of odor into
action when the wind silenced the smells
from the packing houses, the river and
the garbage dump on the north. The resi-
dents were thoroughly surrounded by an
intrenchment of variegated smells from
which there was no escape, no matter
which way the wind blew.
And so strong, husky, able-bodied and
vigorous were some of these smells that
they travelled not only to Sutton Place,
but pushed their way through the side
streets where the fashionable East Siders
live and reached the noses even of those
whose residences are in Park avenue and
thus it was that the nostrils of other fash
ionables were tormented. In a section
known as Beekman Place, seven blocks
further downtown than Mrs. Vanderbilts
home and one-half block further away
from The East River, the odors penetrated.
In Beekman Place there is no Vanderbilt
OF Aston, to be sure, but there are men
snd women Of esthetic tastes and habits,
like Mr.. John Barrymore, the actor, and
his well-known and fashionable wife, who
was Mrs. Leonard Thomas.
And so through the side streets and
now and then out on Park Avenue the
smells intruded until the thing became
unbearable and a mass meeting of resi-
dents within the odoriferous area was
called and the East Side Public Nuisances
Committee was appointed. This commit
tee, with Lawyer John w. Thompson as
counsel, began to make thorough in
vestigation and when enough facts had
been developed, complaint was made to
the New York Board of Health.
Under the section of the law which for
bids unnecessary smells the Board of
Health started into action by summoning
into court representatives of the Wilson