Better than Chinatown at 3am in August: New York City smells like maple syrup.

Seriously.

The aroma was first noticed in lower Manhattan around 9pm last evening and is apparently in all five burroughs now. The Office of Emergency Management has been running tests of the air since last night with no tangible results.

The Times reports on conflicting accounts to the nature of the sweet sweet odor: "A police officer who had thrown out her French vanilla coffee earlier compared it to that. Two diplomats from the Netherlands disagreed, politely. Rieneke Buisman said it smelled like roasted peanuts. Her friend Joris Geeven said it reminded him of a Dutch cake called peperkoek, though he could not describe that smell."