Why is New York City So Dusty?

Or do I just hate vacuuming?

This is what happens in my apartment every time I turn my back

I moved into my own apartment in Brooklyn this summer (yes, it is a 250 square ft studio) and living alone in NYC comes with a lot of perks, like using every shelf in the refrigerator AND behind the mirror in the bathroom. However, not having roommates also makes it much harder for me to delusionally pretend that I don’t create any mess. It’s not that I’m particularly messy in the grand scheme of things, but now I don’t have any roommates to blame things on (looking at you, dishes in the sink). As I’ve started to wrap my head around the responsibilities associated with maintaining my own apartment, I have noticed one striking feature: my apartment is constantly filled with dust.

And I’m not talking regular dusty where you really only notice it after a few weeks or months. I’m talking about a constant, endless stream of dust collecting on every surface in a matter of days, maybe even hours. Every day when I wake up there is a thin layer of white dust on the black top of my refrigerator. Taunting me. Telling me my apartment will never be clean.

Now I just moved back to NYC from Boston – a considerably less dusty city – so I know for a fact that this varies from place to place. But instead of just getting up and dusting my shelves, I decided to look into why all this dust was accumulating in the first place.

Shockingly, the internet didn’t have much of an answer. There’s a Curbed article and some pedantic self-help articles telling me that the reason my house is dusty is because I don’t dust it. So I decided to take to Reddit, where I knew I’d find my answer. And as usual, Reddit delivered:

Alongside the unprompted arguments about congestion pricing, I found some interesting information when digging through these threads:

• Dust/soot/grime varies by neighborhood. If you live in Times Square, Chelsea, or the Bronx, you’re on the dust front lines. There’s apparently no dust on Roosevelt Island though

• Dust varies by color: if you’re getting black dust, you may be living near a facility that is burning unclean fuel as a heat source or you are near a busy street

• Small apartments might mean more dust, since you’re spending all day shedding skin cells in the same space, rather than wandering the halls of your massive mansion

I can’t say that I found any good explanation from where all this dust is coming from, but I’ve developed three theories:

Theory 1: The Dust is Coming From Inside the House

This is what the neolibs want me to think: that my dust is a personal problem. I mean, I think there is some merit to this argument because I am living in a single room so all the dust that would usually be spread out between all the rooms in a house or apartment is collecting in one place. I also have a big rug on the floor that is probably trapping a lot of dust. I guess I should be moisturizing more so I stop shedding so many skin cells?

Theory 2: Brake Dust

One type of black dust comes from the friction produced by the brakes on cars, subway trains, and even bikes. According to powerstop.com, “Brake dust is a fine powder that forms on the surface of brake components, such as brake pads and brake rotors, as they wear down during normal operation. It consists primarily of tiny metal particles from the brake pads and rotor material, as well as other debris from the road surface.” Tiny metal particles? Those can’t be good to breathe in. In fact, they’re not. Long-term exposure to metal dust adversely affects lung functions and can contribute to respiratory disease.

NYC is no stranger to extreme air quality events

Theory 3: The Urban Dust Dome

Maybe big cities are just inherently dusty. Some research has shown that the high levels of pollution and human activity in cities just generally produce a lot of dust and other particles, and that these don’t just float off into the atmosphere and distribute evenly. Instead, pollution often hangs over the city itself, forming what is sometimes referred to as an urban dust dome.

So I can’t say that I really understand why my apartment is so dusty, but I have a hunch that it has to do with both the small size and the urban location. It all makes me wonder what I’m breathing in that I can’t even see. We know that poor air quality can lead to serious negative health outcomes. Is there a correlation between dust and overall air quality? The American Lung Association gives Brooklyn and “A” rating for particle pollution levels. And the air quality has improved significantly over the last few decades thanks to a city initiative to regulate heating oil. Does this mean that I have nothing to worry about? It seems that there is no way to know without an air quality monitor. But what if I found out that the air quality was bad? Would there. be much I could do about it?

This map is a great example of how you can use colors to make it look like a huge change has taken place even though the scale is only 3 ug/m3. Also notice that the map of particulate matter is also a map of highways in NYC?

Perhaps I’ve come to the same conclusion as many other Redditors: dustiness is just a downside of living in New York. Not to go too Carrie Bradshaw on you, but I have to ask: Does exposure to art and culture make up for exposure to particulate matter? All this made me think about when a friend told me that someone is a real Londoner once they blow their nose and it comes out black. What are we willing to put up with to live in a place we love?

Bennett

City Speak #30