Thanksgiving Weekend 1966, running along Kelly Drive I got very sick. Felt like vomiting. I thought I had the flu. The evening news reported high school football teams at practice sent to emergency with some strange illness.

The next day the New York Times reported it was air pollution, ozone air pollution. It covered all of the New York city area, New Jersey Philadelphia and Delaware. One of the high school football teams moms said, “Oh it was only air pollution.”

In a sculling boat going downstream on the Schuylkill River something was hitting my paddles. I let the boat drift by dead fish. 

I was afraid of falling into the river, not because of drowning, because the water smelled so bad. 

I worked at Charles P. Mills, Photography Inc. Independence Hall. I was impressed by the plexiglas chandeliers in the Rohm & Haas building right next door. As I walked towards 7th Street an odor a mix of raw sewage, beer, wine & noxious chemicals some from the factories that made the plexiglass chandeliers in the Rohm & Haas building drifted. It was the smell of the Delaware River. 

“Once upon a time, you could touch the air in New York. It was that filthy. No sensible person would put a toe in most of the waterways.

In 1964, Albert Butzel moved to New York City, which then had the worst air pollution among big cities in the United States.

“I not only saw the pollution, I wiped it off my windowsills,” Mr. Butzel, 78, an environmental lawyer, said. “You’d look at the horizon and it would be yellowish. It was business as normal.”

Today, the future and mission of the E.P.A. are in doubt as President Trump is reported to be calling for the agency’s budget to be cut by 24 percent, a reduction of more than $2 billion. Mr. Trump has also instructed the agency to undo certain regulations protecting waterways. He is expected to issue an order reversing rules to curb planet-warming gases from coal-fired power plants.

"It’s worth reflecting that New York City before the E.P.A. and the movement it represented would be almost unrecognizable in 2017.

In the 1960s, my playmates and I stopped everything when it began “snowing” ash from incinerated garbage. We chased tiny scraps of partly burned paper that floated in the air as if they were blackened snowflakes. According to a study published in 2001, the quantities of lead in the sediments of the Central Park Lake correlated strongly with the vast quantities of particles emitted from garbage burned in Manhattan during the 20th century. The study found 32 garbage incinerators that were operated by the city, and 17,000 others in apartment houses.

Many power plants in the city were fueled with coal and heavy grades of oil, which led to noxious emissions.

Thanksgiving weekend in 1966 was warm, and a haze of smog — sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide — wrapped around the city. About 200 people died, a toll similar to a smog crisis in 1953."

MORE AT:

The Story Of The New York City Smog Of 1966 That Killed 200 People

By Marco Margaritoff | Edited By John Kuroski

Published October 2, 2021

Updated October 16, 2023

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Betsy & me began backpacking in the late 1960s. 

On the New York State Thruway coming back from Vermont the New York City area was covered by an orange cloud.

I suppose lots of people forgot that living in an orange haze was once a nearly everyday thing.

FROM THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA 

Air quality in Philadelphia

Air quality index (AQI) and PM2.5 air pollution in Philadelphia

Check air quality

The Department of Public Health provides real-time daily updates and other resources about the air quality in Philadelphia.

The air quality readings on this page use the U.S. Air Quality Index (AQI). These categories were created by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Learn more about the AQI.

AQI basics for ozone and particle pollution

Green 

Good — 0 to 50

Air quality is satisfactory, and air pollution poses little or no risk.

Yellow 

Moderate — 51 to 100

Air quality is acceptable. However, there may be a risk for some people, particularly those who are unusually sensitive to air pollution.

Orange 

Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups — 101 to 150

Members of sensitive groups may experience health effects. The general public is less likely to be affected.

Red 

Unhealthy — 151 to 200

Some members of the general public may experience health effects. Members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects.

Purple 

Very Unhealthy — 201 to 300

Health alert: The risk of health effects is increased for everyone.

Maroon 

Hazardous — 301 to 500

Health warning of emergency conditions: everyone is more likely to be affected.