North End nausea

The Freedom Trail stinks

by Sarah McNaught

Something lurks beneath the city streets. Something evil. It is a thing with no name, no face, no voice.

Nobody knows where it came from or the source of its power. They know only that it stinks.

A lot.

Right under the Southeast Expressway, at Blackstone Street, stands a tourist information booth. At the mouth of the North End, it is strategically placed along the Freedom Trail, so history-hungry out-of-towners can ask such questions as "Where is the Paul Revere House?" and "Where can we find a good restaurant?"

But since Dale "Gabe" Gabriel -- a 54-year-old artist who has lived in the North End for 25 years -- began volunteering at the booth in August, the most frequent question has been "What is that smell?"

About three feet from the information booth, which is maintained by local artist Sidewalk Sam, are two catch basins, or open sewer holes, covered with metal grates. One is located on the street just under the overpass; the other is in front of the booth, right along the sidewalk.

From those catch basins emanates an odor so offensive it can only be describe as a cornucopia of garbage, urine, rotten food, and raw waste. Neighbors are so disgusted that they avoid the throughway under the overpass, which was intended as a pedestrian route from the North End to Government Center. Instead, they cut through the parking lot that runs behind the kiosk to the Bostonian Hotel, and then across the street to Haymarket Square.

And it's not just neighbors who are offended. The North End -- a dense waterfront community rich with historic churches, brickfront dwellings, and tantalizing ethnic restaurants, bakeries, and coffee shops -- is known far and wide as one of Boston's top attractions. But tourists from all over the world are now going home with one particular memory of this city: parts of it stink.

Kevin Blasi, a construction worker from Pittsburgh, takes his wife by one hand and his 11-year-old son by the other as they run across the street toward the information booth. Young Danny is full of questions about the North End; the family has heard numerous stories about the romance and cultural richness of this Italian niche on the city's edge.

"I'm staaaaaarving, Can we eat some Italian food?" asks the brown-haired youth as he bops along a foot or so from his father.

Blasi laughs at his rambunctious son and leans close to his wife. "If that stench has anything to do with the food, I'm not hungry," he mumbles.

The Blasis have been planning a trip to Boston all summer. They wanted to come in the fall, to see the foliage and check out the historic city. Kevin, who comes from a proud Italian family, was especially excited to see the North End. But this isn't quite what he had in mind.

"It turns you off when you are hit with the odor of raw sewage before you even get into the area," he admits.

The 800 or so members of the North End Association of Concerned Citizens have made numerous phone calls, written letters, and gone to City Hall in person to have the stench investigated. But no one is doing anything about it because no one is taking responsibility for the situation.

Gabe says the problem is that the city owns the sidewalk, the state owns the wall of the tunnel, and the Central Artery Project owns the overpass. And, he adds, each of the three is passing the buck to the other agencies. The mayor's office, Big Dig officials, and the Massachusetts Highway Department did not respond to the Phoenix's inquiries.

The Boston Water and Sewer Department has tried to remedy the problem by spraying the tunnel three to four times a week with disinfectant and dropping bluish-green sanitizing pellets around the area. But when the pellets hit the water inside the catch basins, the odor only seems to intensify, according to Gabe and several other residents. The department is now investigating illegal dumping by cart vendors.

Frustrated, citizens have given the mayor a deadline. In a letter written September 20, Monika Kratzmann, president of the citizens' association, demands that the mayor respond to a series of demands aimed at clearing the air by Friday, October 10.

They have several theories about the source of the smell.

It is believed that pushcart vendors who store their carts on Blackstone Street, in an unfenced lot, are part of the problem.

"They don't clean their carts, and rotten debris from their carts flows into the catch basin," says Kratzmann. Panhandlers who have claimed the underpass as their turf contribute to the rank odor as well.

"The derelicts and panhandlers who hang out under the overpass use it as a public urinal," says Kratzmann.

In a September 28 letter, Gabe asked police commissioner Paul Evans to help deal with the situation. Among the scenes he has observed in the tunnel:

A man with his pants below his butt is lying face down on the sidewalk. His head is in a pool of vomit. There is urine streaming down to the catch basin as he moans.

A tall, long-haired fellow with a beard pulls his pants down to piss against the yard fence. Four hundred (400) people are forced to step over his urine that streams across the walkway.

"I know in every large city there are going to be panhandlers," says 67-year-old Harvey Kensington, a Scotsman here on vacation with his wife, Fiona. "But them and that God-awful odor surely leave a bad impression."

Janette Henry of Cleveland is here on her honeymoon. "Gary convinced me that Boston had its romantic side because of how old it is," says the petite physical therapist, holding a napkin over her face and grabbing hold of her new husband's nylon jacket as she rushes through the underpass. "I'm not so sure I'm convinced. I mean, how can a tourist attraction like the Freedom Trail be so abused by such disgusting circumstances and no one does anything about it?"

"The stench is like a wall," says Gabe. "It's so bad that people who know about it avoid the tunnel at all costs, even if it means going way out of their way."

But not everybody knows to avoid the tunnel. On a normal day, Gabe says, as many as 150 to 160 people walk beneath the overpass every five minutes. On Labor Day Weekend, he counted as many as 215 people every five minutes. That means that in an eight-hour period, 20,000 people are subjected to the putrid smell. About half of them, according to his own informal survey, are tourists.

"We are continuously being told by the city not to get too upset about it because in eight to ten years the Big Dig will have dug the whole thing up anyway," says Gabe. "But what are we supposed to do until that happens?"

Sarah McNaught can be reached at smcnaught[a]phx.com.