No, That Smells About Right

The good news is we’ve reclaimed the Hunts Point waterfront and built a brand new park. The bad news is now we understand why no one wanted to go down there in the first place:

Christian Román went to Barretto Point Park on the waterfront in Hunts Point for the first time last month when the weather turned warm.

He was pleased by the lovely landscaping in the new five-acre park, which opened last October with an alluring swath of grass and a soft margin of sand along the East River. But although he liked what he saw, he did not like what he smelled.

There was a foul odor in the air that he guessed was a consequence of the park’s location, wedged between a private fertilizer plant and a public wastewater treatment facility.

“When you enter, you don’t really smell it,” said Mr. Román, a 21-year-old senior at St. John’s University who was born and raised in the South Bronx, where he still lives with his parents. “It hits you when you go near the beach volleyball area. You’re like, ‘Whoa.’ I had to cover my mouth with my shirt and walk a little faster.”

Complaints about odors that emanate from industrial facilities in Hunts Point are longstanding, but the $7.2 million park has drawn fresh attention to the problem, especially now as summerlike humidity intensifies the smell.

“We’re glad the park is there,” said Elena Conte, a coordinator at Sustainable South Bronx, an environmental organization. “People are enjoying it whenever they can. But the unresolved odor issues are a deterrent.”