SMELLY BROADWAY

ackson Heights is a neighborhood of Queens, New York, that is rich with Hispanic and Asian immigrants, and of course many businesses in the area are targeted to the variety of merchandise consumed by the public that seeks goods similar to the ones they would find in their original, sometimes distant home lands.

Such businesses include record and video stores, restaurants, delis, supermarkets and the like, where the owners, who are usually natives of other lands themselves, try to make their clients feel not too far away from home.

On 76th Street and Broadway, not far from Roosevelt Avenue, there is a building that houses an Asian supermarket, an English language school and a Senior citizen center.

As one enters the supermarket, a strong and nauseating fishy smell quickly invades one's nostrils.

In addition to the usual asian products and other supermarket goods, there is a huge seafood counter that includes live and refrigerated fish, lobsters and crabs.

However, the fishy smell is not restricted to the supermarket.

Upon entering the building's main entrance, a stale odor of rotting fish inhabits the air. The elevator is not free from the smell, and neither is the language school on the second floor.

According to an employee at the language school, the supermarket has a storage area in the building's basement, where, apart from goods, vans with new merchandise daily enter the place, and apparently their trash is also stored there.

All that, added to the fact that the supermarket does not clean the area as frequently as it should, leaves the sickening smell that can be felt everywhere through the building to a greater or lesser degree.

The same employee who I spoke to adds that the supermarket also uses

that same area for garbage storage.

The acrid odor goes up the elevator shaft, and invades the other areas of the building.

I had the opportunity to walk around all the areas of the school, and the odor is present wherever you go - even in the classrooms. However, as you go around the place, the odor becomes less present to the point of not being nauseating(except for the more smell-sensitive noses), so after a few hours one gets used to the smell, however annoying.

I have been inside the supermarket, and the lack of hygiene is noticed as one enters.

The place's floors are dirty, and the shelves with the products are generally dusty. The fishy smell is so incredible that it is surprising how the employees there are not disturbed by the smell.

Of course, they either got used to it or simply need to keep their jobs.

I asked around if the authorities had been contacted in regards to the place.

I was told that the health authorities had been called, but apparently they either ignored the call or were too busy to deal with the subject. One source stated that "this happens because this is a low-income neighborhood of Queens."

I could not help but agree with the distraught citizen. In fact, were that a swanky Manhattan neighborhood, the Asian market at 76 and Broadway would now be nothing but a bad memory.

It is unacceptable that such a place can be allowed to remain open. After all, we are dealing with public health, and the well-being of all New Yorkers, citizens or not, be considered a pressing matter for our authorities.

The Asian Market at 76 and Broadway should have been fined and cleaned up long ago.

When are our authorities going to act?

Ernest Barteldes
Staten Island, NY
picture credits: all pictures by Ernest Barteldes