Justice
This 19th Century 'Stench Map' Shows How Smells Reshaped New York City
Malodorous industries moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn, shifting the industrial landscape.
During the 19th century, it was widely believed that bad smells carried diseases. In the 1870s, the New York City Metropolitan Board of Health created the below "stench map" to point out where malodorous industries—then called "offensive trades"—were located in the city.
"Trying to show smells, which are not concrete—they're invisible, they're ephemeral, they're always changing—is just a really fascinating cultural project," says Melanie Kiechle, a historian at Virginia Tech University who has written about urban odors for the Journal of Urban History.