Residents snowed by mystery dust on 22nd St.

Volume 2, Number 18 | The Weekly Newspaper of Chelsea | February 1 - 7, 2008

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Chelsea Now photos By Jefferson Siegel

This seemingly wintry snowscape on W. 22nd St. would appear ideal for January—except that the mix on the ground was actually a mysterious white powder that showed up early last week, caking cars and building windows and hanging in the air between Seventh and Eighth Aves. The dust covered only a portion of the sidewalk, leading out of the Chelsea Clearview Cinemas’ rear garage area (above right).

Residents snowed by mystery dust on 22nd St.

By Charlotte Cowles

“I thought it snowed,” said Lex Alvarez, 33, regarding the thick coat of white powder that mysteriously appeared along 22nd St. between Seventh and Eighth Aves. last Tuesday. The fine white dust also clouded the air, settled on car windshields, and blew into drifts almost three inches deep in some places along the side of the street. Anytime a vehicle drove down the block, the chalky powder swirled into the air again.

Alvarez, a 33-year-old stylist at Mario Nico Salon at the west end of the block, worried about inhaling the powder when she breathed. “I could feel it in my mouth—like a crunch,” she said, noting she thought it could be fiberglass. “I was worried it was toxic. It should be cleaned up, whatever it is.”

Patrons and stylists in the salon also buzzed with speculation. A customer with foils in her hair, 30-year-old Tessa Lou Nichols, claimed the dust had a strange smell. “It has a chemical toxicity to it,” she said. “I would be curious to find out what it is, if anyone actually knows,” said the salon’s owner, Mario Nico.

Tom Lunke, a resident of the block, said that the dust hung so thickly in the air he was reminded of 9/11. “I walked up to Eighth Avenue to see if it was a building collapse,” he said. Like most of the street’s residents, he was concerned about breathing in the powder when he went outside. “I felt like I needed a gas mask,” he said.

The dust also settled inside people’s homes and on people’s cars. “It got all over everything. It just stuck,” said 22nd St. resident George Smith, 50. “My steps are covered in it, my plants are covered, and my windowsill,” added Lunke.

Nico lives on the ground floor of a building on the block and said he usually keeps his windows wide open because his apartment gets overheated during the winter. He shut them last week. “My kids’ rooms are in the front of the building, and I didn’t want their windows open,” he said. “I don’t know what this stuff is, and I don’t want them inhaling it.”

He also worried that it was environmentally damaging. “Someone should call the EPA,” he suggested. “I hope it’s not harmful, but you never know.”

The dust did not appear on sidewalks, except for the area near the Chelsea Clearview Cinemas’ back garage on 22nd St., where the powder trail appeared to stem from.

A Clearview Cinema employee said that the theater had nothing to do with the substance, but he had heard that it was salt spread by the Sanitation Department due to a complaint about ice on 22nd Street. He had even tasted it to make sure.

The reporter for this piece checked the employee’s story by doing the same. One finger-full off a Jeep windshield revealed the truth: The white powder tasted like salt.

As it turns out, the city Department of Sanitation confirmed on Tuesday—a full week after the dust first appeared—that the mysterious substance was in fact salt. Sanitation pokesperson Keith Mellis explained that after receiving a 311 call about icy conditions, a truck came by to put down the salt. “Sometimes there’s a big concentration,” he said of the ice. “Whatever the condition, it was a big condition.”

In terms of the location of the ice on 22nd Street, Mellis acknowledged he wasn’t sure exactly where it came from. He added the amount of salt used is determined at the scene, and that it must have been a lot of ice to require such a heavy spreading.

“I know it’s not harmful, thank goodness, to humans,” he said. “We sent over some sweepers on Wednesday, just to get it off the sidewalk.” The process was slow and painstaking due to the cars parked along the curb and sub-freezing temperatures.

By Saturday, though, the sweepers finished clearing the street and sidewalk, and the only evidence left of the salt was a light layer on some doorsteps and car hoods.

“We weren’t trying to inconvenience anyone,” Mellis said. “Our job is to keep the streets safe.”