What’s That Mysterious Cinnamon Smell Wafting over Central Park?

Several days ago, Tony was jogging in west Central Park when he caught a strong cinnamon scent in the air. He stopped and looked around, expecting to see someone eating a cinnamon roll, but no one nearby was eating anything he could spot. Just a couple running, a mother pushing a stroller, and a big dog chasing a squirrel up a tree.

“It’s a very pleasant smell, but I have no idea what it is,” Tony told the West Side Spirit.

Tony was one of many frequent park-goers who reported noticing the cinnamon smell, not just this year but for several years.

Olga Bukhina was puzzled by it too. She walked in the park every day, and just outside the gate at 96th Street, her nostrils would fill with the delicious cinnamon scent, though she couldn’t tell where it was coming from.

“It’s strange to smell something like this in the park. It’s clear and not chemical at all,” Bukhina told the Spirit. “At a park in Midtown I smelled full garlic, and in this park, cinnamon.”

“What are you talking about? Which smell? I didn’t smell a thing,” Karsten Struhl, Bukhina’s partner, told her. Struhl walked side by side with Bukhina in the park every day.

Mohammad Joni, a bike tour guide in west Central Park, was convinced the cinnamon smell came from blooming trees in springtime. According to him, the scent usually started in March, ended in April, and was strongest near the park entrance on Sixth Avenue, where there were many trees.

“I’m sure that’s what it is. I’ve worked here for twenty years,” Joni said. “It smells like fresh cinnamon rolls. I always stop what I’m doing and take a deep breath.”

Other park-goers described the mysterious smell in different ways. In a recent Reddit thread, users compared it to “Big Red gum,” “Atomic Fireballs,” “cinnamon brooms from Trader Joe’s in the fall,” and even “rat poison.”

Some people were happy to simply enjoy life’s little mysteries, but not Judy, who often walked through west Central Park with her two dogs, one white and one brown. She was determined to find out what caused the smell. She called the Central Park Conservancy.

“They told me it was the weed killer, with clove in it,” she said.

The cinnamon smell technically comes from cinnamaldehyde in the organic clove oil herbicide used by the Central Park Conservancy. “We spray this environmentally friendly weed killer on the cobblestones along the Park’s perimeter,” the Conservancy wrote on its website. “Weeds compete for nutrients with the magnificent stand of elms and oaks that surround the Park. To protect these trees, we apply clove oil directly to the weeds a few times.” A reliable source told the Spirit the cinnamaldehyde is still being used in the current season.

But the cinnamon smell still eluded some frequent park-goers. When asked whether she had noticed it recently, Neepa sniffed the air and said no.

“It smells like trees,” she said.

Her friend Simran chimed in after sipping her coffee. “I didn’t smell anything either. But that’s probably because I have a nose allergy.”