Compost collides with classical concert

LARGE AND SMELLY trucks have been making regular deliveries to the Parade Ground at Van Cortlandt Park. Compost is being mixed with soil to fertilize the refurbished fields. Photo Illustration by Stefanie Campolo

Stink of 'sustainability' in Vannie

By Kevin Deutsch

As the intermission ended and the opening notes of Mahler’s First Symphony echoed through the warm evening air, there came with it a fetid odor, a stench one might expect to sniff at a circus or horse stable — but not a New York Philharmonic performance.

Like a painfully out-of-tune musical accompaniment, the smell wafted across Van Cortlandt Park’s Parade Ground in time with the orchestra’s opening notes. No sooner had the maestro lifted his baton than the air turned bitter and foul.

Concertgoers held their noses. Gulps of wine were abandoned mid-sip. People looked down at their trays of cheese, seeking a likely offender.

The culprit, though, lay just behind them. Hundreds of pounds of decaying organic matter, some of it spread as fertilizer just hours before the concert, lay baking in the ever-rising humidity. A night of Mozart and Mahler had suddenly turned from sublime to stinky.

“What the heck is that smell?” asked Isaac Sobel, 34, a violinist who made the trek from Queens to hear Mozart’s 41st Symphony and take in what he thought would be some fresh summer air. “Is Ringling Brothers in town?”

It wasn’t the circus, but rather the city’s parks department that bore responsibility for the odor. The fresh compost, the stench of which local residents and business owners along Broadway had been dealing with for several days by the time concertgoers got their first whiff, had been spread as part of the massive ongoing project to rebuild the Parade Ground.

“In hindsight, the timing was not ideal,” said Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, who expects the smell to linger for about a month while crews continue to spread compost. “It would have been better not to have it there when the concert was going on.”

But, Mr. Benepe added, “That would have meant delaying our project.”

Trucks had delivered acres worth of the compost — made primarily of dead plants — at the Parade Ground Wednesday and Thursday mornings. As temperatures rose and breezes stilled, the compost gave off increasingly potent fumes, enveloping a section of Broadway above West 242nd Street in a cloud of tangy air.

The scent snuck into homes and shops like an unwanted guest. Runners used to circling the Parade Ground track took detours, unable to tolerate the smell. As afternoon heat intensified, so did the acridness, until air conditioners were cranked up across the area.

“It’s just disgusting in the morning when it’s the first thing you smell before breakfast,” said Aimee Mihalko, who lives across the street from the Parade Ground. “They should have thought this through a little more.”

Even clerks at the sweetest smelling shop on Broadway, Lloyd’s Carrot Cake, couldn’t keep the odor out.

“People keep asking what the smell is, so we tell them it’s not the cakes,” said one frustrated baker. “We can’t stand the stink anymore. It’s been giving me headaches all day.”

Mr. Benepe had another take on the scent: “It’s the sweet smell of new fields and sustainability,” the commissioner said, explaining that the compost is environmentally friendly.

By the time the Philharmonic settled in for their 8 p.m. performance, the breeze had shifted and the stench, mercifully, had dissipated. The area where concertgoers lay their blankets and spreads of wine and cheese seemed just out of the scent’s reach.

When maestro Alan Gilbert struck up the orchestra for Mozart’s 41st, it seemed an ideal evening. Fireflies glowed brightly in the fading light. A gentle breeze carried across the park. The orchestra finished the piece to a rousing applause.

Then came the intermission. The sky quickly darkened. The breeze shifted.

When Mr. Gilbert struck up the orchestra a second time, this time for Mahler’s First Symphony, there wasn’t just excitement in the air: there was also that crude, unwelcome smell.

“The music’s still beautiful, but when you get a whiff of that stuff, it puts a damper on things,” said Tamara Ewoldt, who decided to stay and brave the smell even as some disgusted concertgoers headed home. “You’ve got to admit, it’s hard to ignore.”

The compost is being used to create new athletic fields on the Parade Ground, a project that began last year and is scheduled to continue into 2010. According to Mr. Benepe, it will be mixed with soil and, come fall, topped with a blanket of sod.

At that time, he said, the compost will be sealed into the ground and the scent completely gone.

“If you care about this planet and about environmental sustainability, you have to get used to the fact that decomposing organic matter has a smell, but it’s a lot better than using chemical fertilizers and things made from fossil fuels,” Mr. Benepe said. “Of all the smells associated with construction, this is probably the least intrusive. There’s nothing toxic about it. It’s the smell of nature taking place.”

This is part of the July 23, 2009 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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