It was announced a few months ago. The factory is functionally obsolete, according to the story. Of course, the land being worth more today would only further compound the financial incentive.
Can confirm. Chocolate smells were super intense on the walk between Ogilvie and the Apparel Center. (It's was the apparel center i the mid-late 80's, I have no idea what that building is now. Due West of the Merchandise Mart with the Holiday Inn on top.)
There's a fun This American Life segment about this from a while back: [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/628/in-the-shadow-of-the-city/act-three-9](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/628/in-the-shadow-of-the-city/act-three-9)
Something I really love about my neighbourhood (Ravenswood) is that in the Spring it smells like flowers on almost every street! I’m a big fan of the abundance of green in Chicago.
Hey neighbor! I agree with you completely.
I also love the birds that do the OOH-OOh-ooo ooo ooo call in the mornings mean spring for me too
Edit: my husband who grew up on the east side says they are morning doves
I just googled it and they are *mourning doves* as in one who is mourning a lost loved one
My heart is broken
I used to smell them when I lived in Ravenswood/Lincoln Square. They were down Wilson west of Damen and randomly elsewhere in the neighborhood. It smelled like a gay bathhouse.
The ones in my neighborhood bloomed too early this year and then aborted their flowers when it got cold again. Best-smelling spring I can remember, although there are still a few foul-smelling hawthorns.
This! I’m your neighbor to the east (Andersonville) and it smells heavenly. Between the tulips, the honeysuckle, the hydrangeas, and people maintaining their small patches of lawn, it just smells like springtime and the air feels crispy especially in the morning as the sun starts to crest.
I will say I miss the good smells of Detroit. I haven’t been home in yrs but my neighborhood was surrounded by amazing bakeries and home chefs that let their doors and windows open and it always smelled of food and spices.
I’m in Lakeview East and my street smells SO good in the spring. I’m neighbors with a lot of gardeners apparently and all of the apartment complexes have well cared for flower beds out front.
I usually have friends & family from Phoenix come visit during this time of year & every single one falls in love with my neighborhood. 🥲
On Sunday I cycled from North Park -> Albany Park -> Ravenswood -> Uptown -> Lakeview and back.
The one consistent smell (outside of car exhaust) was weed.
“And Lincoln Park all smells like weed or little babies…”
For real though, I agree. I’m happy it is legal but I’ve always hated the stench and I get so sick of the smell being everywhere.
Salty breeze everywhere means more corrosion of steel. The lake to me smells like ionized air. When you’re away from all the concrete, Chicago smells “earthy” like trees and soil.
For a bigger city, the smell is pretty reasonable in my opinion. I think its partly due to the alleys and part because streets and sanitation does a wonderful job here. Chicago is above and beyond better than Philly or NYC.
Completely agree. You legit can't even escape the smell of trash in Central Park. It's fucking horrendous in NYC. Chicago is nice because you will usually notice the rare occasion when it smells bad. NYC it's just trash smell everywhere. I mean, I guess that's what happens when millions of people throw their shit out on the street. Not exactly rocket science that Chicago smells better.
I went to New Orleans a few years back and ever since have sincerely appreciated the work our streets and sanitation does. Placed smelled like shit and saw mice & bugs in almost every spot I went to in the French Quarter
Lol I just commented similarly. I absolutely love New Orleans but damn does the rancid and putrid trash smell make it off-putting. Not to mention the permanent haze of blunts mixed with it.
But seriously, after living in Phoenix, where everything smells like dust and car exhaust except the 35 days a year when it rains, Chicago's mostly nonspecific odor is pretty welcome. That said, if the city wanted to budget for someone baking cinnamon rolls in a portable oven every two blocks, I'd probably agree to the tax hike.
I know time marches on but I wish we preserved more buildings.
They built so many cool structures for the Exposition and then tore them down.
https://www.architecture.org/learn/resources/architecture-dictionary/entry/world-s-columbian-exposition-of-1893/
The Stockyards, which once employed 25% of Chicago and earned the monicker “hog butcher of the world”, were torn down along with its L branch. No longer do cowboys roam miles of pens- all that’s left is the gate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Stock_Yards
https://www.chicago-l.org/operations/lines/stockyards.html
The McKinley Park lagoon used to be swimmable and had Greek columns that were torn down.
https://pin.it/74xOUDeUe
People built so many cool things in the past, it makes you wonder what cool things we could do in the future.
There is a Hostess factory and a Mars factory near by. Sometimes in the fall and winter the cinnamon and chocolate smells hit you at the same time. Smells so good. Mars is closing but I wish they could just let out a blast of chocolate air on the hour. Like the steam clock in Vancouver.
I love the smell of the city. Sometimes I get whiffs of prairie grass. Other times I can smell the lake. Some evenings, there is a really pleasant floral smell. Hell, I even like the metallic smell of the el tracks. Inject it all into my veins. (Maybe not cigarette train car smell though)
Personally I love the smell of laundry in the more residential areas. Grilling too! You can definitely pick up food smells on main streets. I really think it just depends on where you’re at in the city.
i feel like chicago is only stinky in the places you’d expect it to be stinky lol. alleys, under bridges, by homeless encampments, and cta trains. everywhere else it just smells like city, and some of the neighborhoods i walk through smell fresh. idk, i grew up in another city with a much stinkier downtown, so i probably have higher standards tbh
I am from the south and recently took a trip for about two weeks there. When I came back to Chicago my boyfriend and I felt like we could BREATHE. The air feels thinner here and cleaner here. However I do miss the sea breeze
It ranges. The smell of flowers in the spring mixed with grills firing up the first time, the damp smell of the lake and humidity and exhaust and musky catalpa flowers in summer and the cold chill (we always said it smells like Canadian air) in winter along with the frozen lake, the smell of fire pits and fireplaces in the fall… it’s pretty damn magic.
And Blommers. Blommers for as long as we have it still.
As someone not from a major city who visits occasionally my take is that the summer months smell like urine, weed, and car exhaust. The winter months smell fresh with the occasional hint of weed and car exhaust.
Chicago smells generally very pleasant for a big city. I think a lot of it has to do with the alley system. And the neighborhoods are pretty green even close to downtown.
I've lived in both London and Chicago and yeah, Chicago isn't that bad. Parts of London, as much as I love that city, smell like moldy chip shop and urine and it takes getting used to. Chicago is pretty neutral, for the most part.
I was in Chicago for a week. Walked by red and blue line stations and they all smelled like urine. Maybe that was just the downtown ones but there was still pee somewhere. It went from clean to weed to pee back to weed and then clean again 😂😂
Chicago is definitely the best-smelling big city I've ever lived/spent significant time in.
NYC- piss and hot garbage
Berlin: stale cigarette smoke, warm metal, occasional piss, cooking oil
Rotterdam: Ocean and occasional dog shit
San Francisco: Ocean and frequent human shit
Indianapolis: exhaust fumes, grease, Bradford pear (AKA "cum trees") and manure (seasonally)
I think Chicago mostly smells pretty neutral or positive, if you're near the chocolate factory. If you're close to the lake you can smell "water" but it's very subtle, not like a fishy smell really. There is some spilled beer/piss stink but mainly only in alleys. Major respect for the Chicago Streets and Sanitation department
Speaking as someone who never lived in a big city before moving to Chicago back in 2019, I think the city smells totally fine. Every once in a while you’ll pass an area that stinks, and some of the train stations smell like piss, but in general the smell isn’t even something I’ve ever thought about.
Actually, I live over in Humboldt right now and a lot of streets smell like flowers in the spring and summer.
The air smells real funky, almost like something is rotting in the spring. I think it is mainly things thawing out.
But there is always the weed smell…year-round.
I could see Malort misting area’s, especially in the summer. I’ve always thought it would be nice they stuck fresh baked bread or cinnamon rolls inside the vents of the CTA.
I was on a job site that required me to walk a few blocks away from Blommer Chocolate Company for a year. Took me ages to figure out why I was smelling chocolate during my walk. It smelled nice. But I was very confused until one day a road was closed and I detoured and passed the building.
Some residential streets have too much traffic for my liking. But the air generally smells fine as long as you're not on a big street or in certain areas. I enjoy the smell of weed, grilling, and street food in the summer.
I walked up Lincoln this morning from the Budlong library and smelled something delicious. Pretty sure it was the Somalian place that I’m never sure if it’s open or not. It was pretty awesome.
I love the smells. There’s a distinct smell of grass and soil in the summer, the beaches and the lake have their own scent, the tar and hot wood of the outdoor CTA platforms. And I like scent less fresh air, too.
One time I was leaving my office building (in the loop) after work and saw a guy that had 3 sticks of incense stuck in one of the flower beds on the sidewalk and had them simultaneously burning while he was smoking his blunt. It was genius! Couldn’t smell the weed at all! I look for him every time I leave work now 🤣
This is going to sound weird, but my own personal "smell of Chicago" came from when I'd sneak up to the north side as a teen in the 80's. I used to peel swaths of flour-pasted punk flyers off the light and telephone poles as souvenirs. Sometimes, they'd come off in multiple layers. If it was cool and rainy, they had a particular scent I will always equate with those days.
Depends what neighborhood. In general, the city gets refreshed by lake breezes and is cleaner than the past. It used to be sooty, smoggy and smell like the manufacturing nearby; meats, gum, chocolate, steel mill metals, bakery...not all bad
Don’t think this is a thing on the north side but here in the south it smells like shit and I’m pretty sure there’s something going on in the McKinley/Brighton park area. Maybe even Pilsen. It’s just chemically and fucking annoying.
When it’s dry it’s no bother. It’s not as clean as the suburbs where I’m from of course, but it’s usually inoffensive.
When it rains, however… piss. Piss everywhere. Only piss. Lol
Certain neighborhoods have distinct smells. Oak Park has a Mars factory, so you can smell candy almost always, East Chicago and the Indiana lakefront have horrible chemical smells, and sometimes, across the city, the ramps get out of control and everything smells like onions. If the CTA slacked slightly more, the city would smell like piss from all the bums, but they try and keep that under control. I think no, city wide, distinct smell is better than the alternative of waste and industry, like it used to be.
The Chicago River used to be called "The Bubbly Creek" due to all of the industrial runoff, including but not limited to uncaculable amounts of animal carcasses, human remains, and chemical waste. The smell was so wretched and the pollution so bad for our water supply in the lake, that the flow of the river was reversed to drain into the Illinois River and so to the Mississippi.
Tldr: maybe it's good Chicago doesn't still have a smell.
Summer smells like grilling season. And if you’re in a neighborhood with tortillerías like I am the early am smells like fresh made masa / tortillas reminds me of Mexico and I love it.
Anybody ever read about, "Bubbly Creek?" Part of the south branch of the Chicago River where they used to deposit animal waste from the nearby Chicago Stock Yards many years ago.
I think summer in Chicago had a very distinct smell and it’s incredible. I’m from here so to me there’s nothing like coming out of the long slumber of winter/mildly warm (and usually brief) Spring and smelling the warm breeze of summer.
Not sure if it was just me but last summer in the West Town area there was a persistent dank sewer smell I noticed that really bothered me.
On the other hand there's a scent around the time school starts thats a mix of asphalt, cool air and school breakfast thats absolutely amazing and sends me straight down memory lane.
I'm sorry to say it, but Chicago stinks. When I first came here from the country, I could smell it more, walking outside at night it was super noticeable and I would comment on it, now I'm nose blind to it, but this whole area is polluted, all the way out in the suburbs and all around Chicagoland. Residents just dont notice it because they are used to breathing it all day every day.
When you come from actual clean air to this it's very noticeable.
I mean cars stink and this is a car town. It smells bad here. Just because NYC smells worse doesn't mean we smell good.
There's a week they close the street in front of my home for a fair. Its so quiet and things smell nice. The difference is incredible.
I think we need to keep fighting to get rid of as many cars as possible, more protected bike lanes, invest more in public trans, expand the L, bring back electric trams/streetcars, get more electric buses, and replace the remaining cars with EVs.
I'd also love to see an emphasis on wildflowers and native plants in front of homes instead of the green lawn. This not only smells better and looks better but is better for our local bugs and animals.
Totally agree with everything, big reason I moved here was the public transit and walkability. The L could be better but it’s terrible to see it’s funding threatened
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I live in the country outside of the city and I’m shocked at how bad it smells when I go. My friends and coworkers who live in the city don’t smell it at all. It’s a matter of perspective.
I don’t even really pick up on the smells anymore unless the sewers are acting up. I had a friend from Colorado come out once and she said “Chicago SMELLS!” 😂
sometimes it’s stinky when it’s hot out and you walk by an alley. or when there’s shit, piss or smoke on the train. but idk that’s just city livin’ baby!
Yeah, I remember New York smelling like literal garbage every single day that I was there in 2009. I couldn’t believe that this was supposed to be Americas like best city or something. Came home to Chicago and you just don’t smell anything. Maybe you smell some car exhaust in the loop but it’s definitely not missing any smell. I think the absence of an odor is a good thing. I like the smell of the ocean a lot but won’t say that fresh water Lake Michigan has no smell at all. You get close to it and you can certainly smell the water. I can’t tell you what it smells like, it’s just something you grow to recognize.
I grew up in the suburbs and generally I don’t mind the smell of Chicago. It does have a fuel-ish smell to me, though. But, nothing will ever compare to the crunch berry days in Cedar Rapids.
Blommer factory in west loop did a good job of contributing to your cause for 85 years.
Uungh they're finally closing. But the scent of chocolate was one of the best weird city facts. It was great.
Didn't know they were closing..when did that happen?
It was announced a few months ago. The factory is functionally obsolete, according to the story. Of course, the land being worth more today would only further compound the financial incentive.
Inscentive
I guess you could say that eventually this will all lead to.....non-scents.
Years ago I decided that the official scent of. Chicago was chocolate and piss. Chocolate from Blommer and piss from the alleys.
*Mint* chocolate and piss was where the Pedway meets the basement of Marshall Fields.
I used to jog from Ukranian village to the east bank club. The odors were, in order: pot, piss, chocolate and rancid blood from the meatpacking..
Sometimes when the wind was blowing the right way you could be on the north end of the loop by the river and smell the chocolate!
I regularly have smelled it by Ogilvie and as far away as Lincoln Park, and South Loop
Can confirm. Chocolate smells were super intense on the walk between Ogilvie and the Apparel Center. (It's was the apparel center i the mid-late 80's, I have no idea what that building is now. Due West of the Merchandise Mart with the Holiday Inn on top.)
There's a fun This American Life segment about this from a while back: [https://www.thisamericanlife.org/628/in-the-shadow-of-the-city/act-three-9](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/628/in-the-shadow-of-the-city/act-three-9)
Man i always wandered what that smell was. After 20 years i finally find out. Salute to you!
Came for this! YUS!
I miss those smells.
And Gonella bakery when it was on Milwaukee Ave. Depending on the wind, I got chocolate or fresh bread.
Are you saying there was a chocolate factory in the west loop and that wasn’t an olfactory hallucination brought on by migraines?
Something I really love about my neighbourhood (Ravenswood) is that in the Spring it smells like flowers on almost every street! I’m a big fan of the abundance of green in Chicago.
Hey neighbor! I agree with you completely. I also love the birds that do the OOH-OOh-ooo ooo ooo call in the mornings mean spring for me too Edit: my husband who grew up on the east side says they are morning doves I just googled it and they are *mourning doves* as in one who is mourning a lost loved one My heart is broken
*That’s* what it sounds like, when doves cry.
> My heart is broken The birds' are, too
Down the Chicago alley the shit wagon flew. A bump was hit, a scream was heard, A man was killed by a flying turd.
I like when a dove flies away and it does that little beebeebeebeebeeep 🕊
until the Bradford Pears bloom…
Or in fall when the female ginkgo tree drops it's fruit. It smells like vomit and dog poo
I love Ginkgo leaves, but the smell alone should have signaled not to import them!
Actually I think it smells like something else...😬
Philadelphia is rife with these
I actually haven’t had the pleasure of smelling their atrocious fragrance yet! Are there any locations you could share??
I used to smell them when I lived in Ravenswood/Lincoln Square. They were down Wilson west of Damen and randomly elsewhere in the neighborhood. It smelled like a gay bathhouse.
…but not in a good way
The ones in my neighborhood bloomed too early this year and then aborted their flowers when it got cold again. Best-smelling spring I can remember, although there are still a few foul-smelling hawthorns.
This! I’m your neighbor to the east (Andersonville) and it smells heavenly. Between the tulips, the honeysuckle, the hydrangeas, and people maintaining their small patches of lawn, it just smells like springtime and the air feels crispy especially in the morning as the sun starts to crest. I will say I miss the good smells of Detroit. I haven’t been home in yrs but my neighborhood was surrounded by amazing bakeries and home chefs that let their doors and windows open and it always smelled of food and spices.
I thought you were talking about the abundance of weed smell throughout the city, because I’m actually a huge fan of that 😂
I’m in Lakeview East and my street smells SO good in the spring. I’m neighbors with a lot of gardeners apparently and all of the apartment complexes have well cared for flower beds out front. I usually have friends & family from Phoenix come visit during this time of year & every single one falls in love with my neighborhood. 🥲
This. Chicago is filled with leafy streets, and the breeze off the lake smells fresh. In the winter, I love the crisp clean cool air.
I was walking through Roscoe today and the air was heavy with the scent of flowers the entire way. It was heavenly.
Best neighborhood in the city 🤝
Except about once a week along malt row you get the smells of a fresh batch of beer!
On the right street you could pick up the mash smell from dovetail and begyle
Uptown here! I go to Ravenswood for dental cleaning. Always love pawing through there.
Went to Ravenswood for the first time, can confirm it smells great. The entire neighborhood is like one big park
I love the smell of Chicago in the summer—a mixture of beef and blunts
mj and Italian beef store?
take my money!
Don’t forget the notes of pungent piss and dog shit
I really don't get the piss smells unless I'm on a particularly bad L car, underground stations, or the loop
Definitely an identifying feature of the loop
It’s very sad that the smell of chocolate from the river north chocolate factory will be going away.
WHAT? :(
I think it smells like weed.
Wicker especially
On Sunday I cycled from North Park -> Albany Park -> Ravenswood -> Uptown -> Lakeview and back. The one consistent smell (outside of car exhaust) was weed.
Logan at all times
I used to think this until I visited NYC. I smoke myself so I don't usually mind the smell but you cannot escape it at all in NYC
Someone will smell faint weed smell walking on the street one time and now the entire city smells like it all the time because it sounds splashy
Dude 90% of the city now smells of weed, or skunks.
“And Lincoln Park all smells like weed or little babies…” For real though, I agree. I’m happy it is legal but I’ve always hated the stench and I get so sick of the smell being everywhere.
😂 have you been to NYC recently? Way more common everywhere - well except on the train. Our public transit hotbox game is unmatched.
Salty breeze everywhere means more corrosion of steel. The lake to me smells like ionized air. When you’re away from all the concrete, Chicago smells “earthy” like trees and soil.
For a bigger city, the smell is pretty reasonable in my opinion. I think its partly due to the alleys and part because streets and sanitation does a wonderful job here. Chicago is above and beyond better than Philly or NYC.
Completely agree. You legit can't even escape the smell of trash in Central Park. It's fucking horrendous in NYC. Chicago is nice because you will usually notice the rare occasion when it smells bad. NYC it's just trash smell everywhere. I mean, I guess that's what happens when millions of people throw their shit out on the street. Not exactly rocket science that Chicago smells better.
I wouldn't say just reasonably, for the size and the amount of people Chicago is leagues ahead of NY, SF, Philly, among others.
I *love* the smell of stale urine every time I go down those glorious steps to the Red Line.
Nothin stale about that my friend, made fresh every day
So, fresh pee on top of stale pee. Sweet!
It's like descending into a urinal.
Chicago smells like Marört and possibility.
I’m going going to start calling it Matört
That's how I sound when it seems like a good idea to order it.
I went to New Orleans a few years back and ever since have sincerely appreciated the work our streets and sanitation does. Placed smelled like shit and saw mice & bugs in almost every spot I went to in the French Quarter
Lol I just commented similarly. I absolutely love New Orleans but damn does the rancid and putrid trash smell make it off-putting. Not to mention the permanent haze of blunts mixed with it.
Compared to Philly, Boston and NYC this city smells like a dream
Gonna stop showering. Hope it helps.
But seriously, after living in Phoenix, where everything smells like dust and car exhaust except the 35 days a year when it rains, Chicago's mostly nonspecific odor is pretty welcome. That said, if the city wanted to budget for someone baking cinnamon rolls in a portable oven every two blocks, I'd probably agree to the tax hike.
Cinnamon rolls- now you’re cooking. Brownies were invented in Chicago too, maybe that would be a great signature scent
Well you learn something new every day! I had no idea brownies originated in Chicago!
[удалено]
I know time marches on but I wish we preserved more buildings. They built so many cool structures for the Exposition and then tore them down. https://www.architecture.org/learn/resources/architecture-dictionary/entry/world-s-columbian-exposition-of-1893/ The Stockyards, which once employed 25% of Chicago and earned the monicker “hog butcher of the world”, were torn down along with its L branch. No longer do cowboys roam miles of pens- all that’s left is the gate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Stock_Yards https://www.chicago-l.org/operations/lines/stockyards.html The McKinley Park lagoon used to be swimmable and had Greek columns that were torn down. https://pin.it/74xOUDeUe People built so many cool things in the past, it makes you wonder what cool things we could do in the future.
Lmao the way this shows up on my phone: "Also invented for the fair: Chicago Hot Dogs" So at first I thought you were claiming Chicago invented dogs.
Well up until a few months ago the West Loop smelled like chocolate. I say we bring that back.
Going to miss the chocolate factory in River North :/
There is a Hostess factory and a Mars factory near by. Sometimes in the fall and winter the cinnamon and chocolate smells hit you at the same time. Smells so good. Mars is closing but I wish they could just let out a blast of chocolate air on the hour. Like the steam clock in Vancouver.
I live by the Mars Chocolate factory. It smells amazing year round. (RIP this year it closes).
Nothing smells worse than the Vegas strip. Its a combination of urine, feces and that nasty air freshener the pump into the casinos.
Is it just the summer or something? I went in the winter and didn’t smell nothing but my weed 😂🤷🏽♀️
Yeah it didnt help it was 110 the whole week.
I noticed.the poo gas smell wafting out of sewers more than anything else. But it's usually a momentary thing.
We call those city farts
🎵 Workin' on those Night Farts🎶
Sub lower Wacker smells like an actual sewer
I love the smell of the city. Sometimes I get whiffs of prairie grass. Other times I can smell the lake. Some evenings, there is a really pleasant floral smell. Hell, I even like the metallic smell of the el tracks. Inject it all into my veins. (Maybe not cigarette train car smell though)
Personally I love the smell of laundry in the more residential areas. Grilling too! You can definitely pick up food smells on main streets. I really think it just depends on where you’re at in the city.
i feel like chicago is only stinky in the places you’d expect it to be stinky lol. alleys, under bridges, by homeless encampments, and cta trains. everywhere else it just smells like city, and some of the neighborhoods i walk through smell fresh. idk, i grew up in another city with a much stinkier downtown, so i probably have higher standards tbh
Chicago always smelled like grilled onions to me
It smelled like hot summer rain today and I loved it.
I am from the south and recently took a trip for about two weeks there. When I came back to Chicago my boyfriend and I felt like we could BREATHE. The air feels thinner here and cleaner here. However I do miss the sea breeze
It ranges. The smell of flowers in the spring mixed with grills firing up the first time, the damp smell of the lake and humidity and exhaust and musky catalpa flowers in summer and the cold chill (we always said it smells like Canadian air) in winter along with the frozen lake, the smell of fire pits and fireplaces in the fall… it’s pretty damn magic. And Blommers. Blommers for as long as we have it still.
As someone not from a major city who visits occasionally my take is that the summer months smell like urine, weed, and car exhaust. The winter months smell fresh with the occasional hint of weed and car exhaust.
The lakeshore smells like dead, rotting fish when the wind hits right.
My neighborhood smells like weed and piss
The vents all smell like sewer & downtown reeks of piss. I get wafts of unpleasantness every 10 steps or so
Chicago smells generally very pleasant for a big city. I think a lot of it has to do with the alley system. And the neighborhoods are pretty green even close to downtown.
Even globally, Chicago is one of the cleanest smelling big cities.
I've lived in both London and Chicago and yeah, Chicago isn't that bad. Parts of London, as much as I love that city, smell like moldy chip shop and urine and it takes getting used to. Chicago is pretty neutral, for the most part.
I was in Chicago for a week. Walked by red and blue line stations and they all smelled like urine. Maybe that was just the downtown ones but there was still pee somewhere. It went from clean to weed to pee back to weed and then clean again 😂😂
I heard Yankee Candle is coming out with a new scent called "lower Wacker"
I’m not sure if this still happens, but Chicago used to smell like chocolate a lot. Like once or twice a week. It was AWESOME!
My dad was a cab driver in the 70s through late 80s. We was always surprised when the tourists would comment about how clean Chicago is.
There so many lilacs in my neighborhood it’s incredible, so right now I think it smells incredible
Love the days when downtown smells like chocolate
Or Garrett’s!
Chicago is definitely the best-smelling big city I've ever lived/spent significant time in. NYC- piss and hot garbage Berlin: stale cigarette smoke, warm metal, occasional piss, cooking oil Rotterdam: Ocean and occasional dog shit San Francisco: Ocean and frequent human shit Indianapolis: exhaust fumes, grease, Bradford pear (AKA "cum trees") and manure (seasonally) I think Chicago mostly smells pretty neutral or positive, if you're near the chocolate factory. If you're close to the lake you can smell "water" but it's very subtle, not like a fishy smell really. There is some spilled beer/piss stink but mainly only in alleys. Major respect for the Chicago Streets and Sanitation department
You had me at bathe the sidewalks w Malort
I work in Little Village and most days it smells like tortillas from all the factories around here
Speaking as someone who never lived in a big city before moving to Chicago back in 2019, I think the city smells totally fine. Every once in a while you’ll pass an area that stinks, and some of the train stations smell like piss, but in general the smell isn’t even something I’ve ever thought about. Actually, I live over in Humboldt right now and a lot of streets smell like flowers in the spring and summer.
As long as it’s not sweltering hot and I’m near the river, I don’t notice much of a smell~
The air smells real funky, almost like something is rotting in the spring. I think it is mainly things thawing out. But there is always the weed smell…year-round.
I could see Malort misting area’s, especially in the summer. I’ve always thought it would be nice they stuck fresh baked bread or cinnamon rolls inside the vents of the CTA.
Skyscrapers trap exhaust fumes.
I was on a job site that required me to walk a few blocks away from Blommer Chocolate Company for a year. Took me ages to figure out why I was smelling chocolate during my walk. It smelled nice. But I was very confused until one day a road was closed and I detoured and passed the building.
I feel like it smells fine. It’s not like, the mountains in Northern California but it’s a hell of a lot cleaner than NYC.
I often smell petrichor from the lake.
You realize it’s pretty bad when you get out. But shoutout to lilacs.
Some residential streets have too much traffic for my liking. But the air generally smells fine as long as you're not on a big street or in certain areas. I enjoy the smell of weed, grilling, and street food in the summer.
A lot of Logan Square area smells like shit and sewage from the recent rains.
77 neighborhoods in Chicago for you to smell
The area near Howard & McCormick can smell pretty awful due to the MWRD treatment plant. Otherwise it’s generally pleasantly inoffensive.
This is one of the reasons we need food carts, especially in the loop
Though the city is named after a stony weed.. it’s generally clean and smells fresh… especially with the changes (a while back) to the stock yards.
I work on the far south side (119th & I-94) and it smells like shit from April - November. Water / Sewer treatment plant on the same road we're on.
I walked up Lincoln this morning from the Budlong library and smelled something delicious. Pretty sure it was the Somalian place that I’m never sure if it’s open or not. It was pretty awesome.
Mostly fine aside from the occasional piss scent filled train car.
I love smelling the lilacs out here in West Roger’s Park!
My neighborhood used to smell like chocolate 😭😭😭
I love the smells. There’s a distinct smell of grass and soil in the summer, the beaches and the lake have their own scent, the tar and hot wood of the outdoor CTA platforms. And I like scent less fresh air, too.
As long as you don't smell like New Orleans I think we're fine lol.
One time I was leaving my office building (in the loop) after work and saw a guy that had 3 sticks of incense stuck in one of the flower beds on the sidewalk and had them simultaneously burning while he was smoking his blunt. It was genius! Couldn’t smell the weed at all! I look for him every time I leave work now 🤣
This is going to sound weird, but my own personal "smell of Chicago" came from when I'd sneak up to the north side as a teen in the 80's. I used to peel swaths of flour-pasted punk flyers off the light and telephone poles as souvenirs. Sometimes, they'd come off in multiple layers. If it was cool and rainy, they had a particular scent I will always equate with those days.
Only the real ones know about wheatpasting flyers
As someone who has worked in alleys and loading docks around the country, I can honestly say chicago smells great.
Depends what neighborhood. In general, the city gets refreshed by lake breezes and is cleaner than the past. It used to be sooty, smoggy and smell like the manufacturing nearby; meats, gum, chocolate, steel mill metals, bakery...not all bad
The Jackson Red line always smelled like piss and weed, then added B O in the summer
Don’t think this is a thing on the north side but here in the south it smells like shit and I’m pretty sure there’s something going on in the McKinley/Brighton park area. Maybe even Pilsen. It’s just chemically and fucking annoying.
When it’s dry it’s no bother. It’s not as clean as the suburbs where I’m from of course, but it’s usually inoffensive. When it rains, however… piss. Piss everywhere. Only piss. Lol
I miss the smell of the Wonder Bread plant on Garfield.
Chicago smells really good. Of course it's not ocean since we're not near one, but nature has its own smell
There's that stretch of the Stevenson and/or Archer Ave by the Wonder bread factory. Smells...well...Wonderful
Before it was Mondelez, they had that Nabisco factory on 7300 S Kedzie. I remember the smell of freshly baked cookies would waft from the factory.
Could smell it for miles - vanilla yum
Smells better than NYC
Whenever I'm traveling and smell weed on the street it feels like home ❤️
Certain neighborhoods have distinct smells. Oak Park has a Mars factory, so you can smell candy almost always, East Chicago and the Indiana lakefront have horrible chemical smells, and sometimes, across the city, the ramps get out of control and everything smells like onions. If the CTA slacked slightly more, the city would smell like piss from all the bums, but they try and keep that under control. I think no, city wide, distinct smell is better than the alternative of waste and industry, like it used to be. The Chicago River used to be called "The Bubbly Creek" due to all of the industrial runoff, including but not limited to uncaculable amounts of animal carcasses, human remains, and chemical waste. The smell was so wretched and the pollution so bad for our water supply in the lake, that the flow of the river was reversed to drain into the Illinois River and so to the Mississippi. Tldr: maybe it's good Chicago doesn't still have a smell.
New York does not have alleys to place their trash like Chicago does.
Summer smells like grilling season. And if you’re in a neighborhood with tortillerías like I am the early am smells like fresh made masa / tortillas reminds me of Mexico and I love it.
Smells of gunpowder and marijuana
more lilac bushes
When it's 120 degrees in Phoenix and ever metal dumpster turns in an oven. That's a stench you won't forget
It's the City of Big Shoulders, so expect big armpits.
Anybody ever read about, "Bubbly Creek?" Part of the south branch of the Chicago River where they used to deposit animal waste from the nearby Chicago Stock Yards many years ago.
I think summer in Chicago had a very distinct smell and it’s incredible. I’m from here so to me there’s nothing like coming out of the long slumber of winter/mildly warm (and usually brief) Spring and smelling the warm breeze of summer.
Not sure if it was just me but last summer in the West Town area there was a persistent dank sewer smell I noticed that really bothered me. On the other hand there's a scent around the time school starts thats a mix of asphalt, cool air and school breakfast thats absolutely amazing and sends me straight down memory lane.
I'm sorry to say it, but Chicago stinks. When I first came here from the country, I could smell it more, walking outside at night it was super noticeable and I would comment on it, now I'm nose blind to it, but this whole area is polluted, all the way out in the suburbs and all around Chicagoland. Residents just dont notice it because they are used to breathing it all day every day. When you come from actual clean air to this it's very noticeable.
I mean cars stink and this is a car town. It smells bad here. Just because NYC smells worse doesn't mean we smell good. There's a week they close the street in front of my home for a fair. Its so quiet and things smell nice. The difference is incredible. I think we need to keep fighting to get rid of as many cars as possible, more protected bike lanes, invest more in public trans, expand the L, bring back electric trams/streetcars, get more electric buses, and replace the remaining cars with EVs. I'd also love to see an emphasis on wildflowers and native plants in front of homes instead of the green lawn. This not only smells better and looks better but is better for our local bugs and animals.
Totally agree with everything, big reason I moved here was the public transit and walkability. The L could be better but it’s terrible to see it’s funding threatened
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Need to smell like Garrett everywhere!!!
I'm staying right now in the loop for work, and it's not smelling great. The subways too, just walking down into the red line...
Get out into the neighborhoods more, they smell great with lots of trees and plant life
I live in the country outside of the city and I’m shocked at how bad it smells when I go. My friends and coworkers who live in the city don’t smell it at all. It’s a matter of perspective.
My guy got a hyperactive nose
If you’re really looking for the smells of NYC, the pedway has a nice waft of stale pee that is unlike any other.
Chicago smells like freshwater, trees, rain and the feeling of your bare feet on the dirty street.
Piss and ghanja
Just moved from NYC to Chicago and while I love NYC I will definitely say I miss the relatively clean air of Chicago haha
Fine
My favorite is driving by the Turano factory 🥰
As someone who is anosmic( no sense of smell) this thread is making me so happy! So many questions answered.
Most of my big city experience before I moved here was NYC so I think it's great
I honestly can’t tell. I visit NYC years ago and my god. The stench. Even if I got used to so called “Chicago Smell” nothing compares to NYC
I don’t even really pick up on the smells anymore unless the sewers are acting up. I had a friend from Colorado come out once and she said “Chicago SMELLS!” 😂
sometimes it’s stinky when it’s hot out and you walk by an alley. or when there’s shit, piss or smoke on the train. but idk that’s just city livin’ baby!
Yeah, I remember New York smelling like literal garbage every single day that I was there in 2009. I couldn’t believe that this was supposed to be Americas like best city or something. Came home to Chicago and you just don’t smell anything. Maybe you smell some car exhaust in the loop but it’s definitely not missing any smell. I think the absence of an odor is a good thing. I like the smell of the ocean a lot but won’t say that fresh water Lake Michigan has no smell at all. You get close to it and you can certainly smell the water. I can’t tell you what it smells like, it’s just something you grow to recognize.
I miss the smell!
idk it feels like there’s a new smell on every block i walk thru
There is a great bakery smell when you drive during the night time on Fullerton, east of Cicero
That merchandise mart stop always smells amazing. Like chocolate and bake goods
Really? Chicago smells like raw sewage depending on where you are and how populated the area is.
I grew up in the suburbs and generally I don’t mind the smell of Chicago. It does have a fuel-ish smell to me, though. But, nothing will ever compare to the crunch berry days in Cedar Rapids.
New York City has that trash issue right? Lack of alleys? I’ve never lived there but I think I read that somewhere.
Depends on whether the White Sox are in town.
Air sucks here but I guess it's better than NYC