{"id":362114,"date":"2026-10-01T19:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T19:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/362114\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T19:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T19:44:08","slug":"explore-nyc-through-all-five-senses-at-city-lores-new-exhibit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/362114\/","title":{"rendered":"Explore NYC Through All Five Senses at City Lore\u2019s New Exhibit"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Yorkers spend plenty of time trying to avoid the city\u2019s smells<\/a>. An upcoming East Village exhibition would like you to lean in\u2014although, mercifully, its scratch-and-sniff offerings include Christmas trees and fortune cookie factories.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Opening October 8 at City Lore Gallery, Sense & the City: Exploring New York City Through the Five Senses<\/a>\u00a0turns 18 years of writer Caitlin Van Dusen\u2019s urban adventures into a multisensory tour of the five boroughs. Nearly 200 places appear through photographs and excerpts from her namesake City Lore blog, along with interactive features that invite visitors to sniff, touch and listen their way around town.<\/p>\n

The scent strips capture everything from the balsam of sidewalk Christmas tree stands to a briny Bronx pickle factory. A \u201ctactile rail\u201d offers objects to handle, including dirt from Aqueduct Racetrack and a basket Van Dusen wove from invasive Staten Island vines.<\/p>\n

For the soundtrack, there\u2019s Surround Sounds Piano_QNS, an upright piano retrofitted by local artists Arthur Fleischmann and Daniel Giachetti. Each key plays a distinct sound collected in Queens, giving visitors a chance to hear the borough through an unusual instrument.\u00a0Visitors can also sample foods from around the five boroughs at the opening reception, though tastings won\u2019t be offered throughout the exhibition\u2019s run.<\/p>\n

\"Wooden
\nPhotograph: ShutterstockWooden escalators at Macy’s Herald Square <\/p>\n

The places documented range from Macy\u2019s<\/a> wooden escalators and McSorley\u2019s<\/a> cracker-and-cheese plate to Staten Island\u2019s boat graveyard, Cooper Union\u2019s anechoic chamber and faces carved into rocks on Brighton Beach. Van Dusen\u2019s reporting has also taken her into a Long Island City sewer tunnel on a raft, through knee-deep mud to inspect sunken boats and around Manhattan\u2019s entire perimeter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a bittersweet thread, too: 40 \u201cghost sites\u201d revisit places that have disappeared or changed, including Kensington\u2019s Buzz-a-Rama slot-car racing venue and the auto-repair shacks of Willets Point\u2019s Iron Triangle. The exhibition doubles as a record of the city\u2019s more easily overlooked pleasures and how quickly they can vanish.<\/p>\n

Part of City Lore\u2019s 40th-anniversary programming, the show runs through January 18, 2027, at 56 East First Street. Regular gallery hours are Saturdays and Sundays, from 12pm to 6pm; the October 8 opening reception runs from 6pm to 8pm, with RSVPs available through Eventbrite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Yorkers spend plenty of time trying to avoid the city\u2019s smells. An upcoming East Village exhibition would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1149,8944,9,11,10,8945],"class_list":["post-362114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-art","tag-categories-art","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-news-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}