If you live in Harlem and smell cinnamon today, it’s not fresh buns baking — it’s a gas project.
The city Office of Emergency Management last night said it will be upgrading a gas pipeline, and in order to keep people from calling 911, it is replacing the normal lousy smell with the scent of cinnamon.
The sweet scent will spice up West 134 Street near the Hudson River from 8:30 a.m. to about 10:30 a.m., OEM spokesman Christopher Miller said.
“There’s no danger. It’s a masking agent used to cover the scent of mercaptan,” he said.
Mercaptan is the stinky odor added to natural gas — which is odorless — so that people can easily detect a leak. Miller said that if any one smells the cinnamon, there may be gas but there is no danger.
“This will be performed in an open environment and there are no health risks,” he assured.