New Yorkers puzzled by smell

Emergency services were inundated with calls from the public

Thousands of New Yorkers experienced a gas-like smell that spread across a large part of Manhattan and over into New Jersey on Monday morning.

Jeffrey Fagan, a professor of law at Columbia University, was in his car on Manhattan's West Side at around 0845 on Monday.

"At first I thought someone had overturned the garbage," he said.

"Then it smelt like natural gas or methane. Then it was so strong and pungent that I thought it was a decomposing animal of some sort that had climbed into my car."

He said it wasn't until 34th Street that the smell dissipated. "It lasted so long that I began to think that there was something in the air."

We thought it was just our building so to be told that it was the whole of midtown was disconcerting Emma Simonich

Residents from different parts of the city called the emergency services about the odour.

"There were lots of emergency vehicles," said Keith Gardner, a church warden and business manager who was in downtown Manhattan. "I was talking on my cell as I walked to the subway and fire engines were going one way and police vehicles the other."

He said people remained calm on the streets. "There was no sense of panic, although people were concerned because of the bad smell."

Emma Simonich, who works in the high-rise McGraw-Hill building in the Rockefeller Center complex, said that she assumed the odour was linked to construction in her building until the warden made an announcement.

"He said it was affecting the whole of mid-town, from 14th to 60th."

"People got a bit freaked out at that stage. We thought it was just our building so to be told that it was the whole of midtown was disconcerting."

But she said there was no talk of evacuation and the smell was gone around two hours later.