Taking a page from the hotel industry, apartment buildings in New York City are infusing their lobbies and other community areas with freshening scents to offer a different olfactory sensation from the city streets outside their doors.
For example, the Upper West Side apartment community 21 West End uses lobby ductwork to pump in a fragrance. Currently, the building uses a beach-like scent called Ocean Mist, but come the holiday season, it will shift to Season’s Greetings, which evokes apple cider and cinnamon.
ScentAir is the fragrance provider for 21 West End and 66 other residential buildings in New York City. The company says the multifamily market has been its largest growing segment for the past three years.
However, Rachel Herz, adjunct assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University, notes that smell can evoke memories that are not always pleasant. And Beth E. Corn, associate professor of allergy and immunology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, warns that some people find any fragrance to be an irritant.