Hundreds of jokes spring to my mind

For those wondering, I didn’t smell the odor, but I also didn’t venture lower than 96th Street, so that might explain it. And now the culprit may be pinpointed:

NEW YORK (AP) — The gas-like odor that hung over Manhattan’s

streets was gone Tuesday, but city officials were still trying to

pinpoint its source — and eyeing New Jersey.

Charles Sturcken, a

spokesman for the city Department of Environmental Protection, said

Tuesday that his agency was pretty sure the source of the smell was

along New Jersey’s industrialized waterfront, just across the Hudson

River from New York.

“The way we tracked the dispersion of the

smell and the prevailing winds indicates that it came from New Jersey,

somewhere near Secaucus,” Sturcken said.

The strong odor,

detectable from Manhattan’s southern tip to well past Central Park, led

to some precautionary evacuations, and about a dozen people were taken

to hospitals complaining of difficulty breathing, Fire Department

spokesman Tony Sclafani.

There was no indication that the air was unsafe, though, and no indication of terrorism, city and federal officials said.

New Jersey Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa Jackson bristled at New York officials’ finger-pointing at her state, saying

she wished that New York instead would help New Jersey look for the

source. “It looks an awful lot like jumping to conclusions,” she said. Yeah, but it’s so damn easy…