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🌂Cloudy day with some morning rain possible and highs in the 60s. Sunset is at 8:25 p.m.

Today we’ll be hearing from my colleague Edgar B. Herwick, III of GBH’s Curiosity Desk about something he and the team have been working on for a while: an exploration of one of the enduring urban legends behind the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. 

“There are so many new things I learned doing this story: smell is the oldest of our five senses! The molasses in that tank was being used as munitions during WWI!” Edgar said. When I watched the video, I learned that Boston used to have an elevated train line connecting North and South stations. It was damaged in the Great Molasses Flood and rebuilt — but shut down about two decades later because of low ridership. You’ll hear from him below, after today’s news.

Four Things to Know

1. Massachusetts state senators, trying to better protect abortion, reproductive care, and gender affirming care, passed a bill yesterday that would prohibit state agencies here from giving information to federal and out-of-state investigators into those kinds of care. If the bill becomes law, it would also limit people outside Massachusetts from accessing electronic health care records for reproductive and gender affirming care here.

“Whether you agree with the specific services referred to in this bill, nobody outside Massachusetts should be able to decide what care we provide regardless of the specific services being targeted,” said the bill’s author, State Sen. Cindy Friedman of Arlington. Next steps: the bill is expected to get a vote in the State House in the next few weeks.

2. A mosquito in Shrewsbury tested positive for West Nile virus last week. “It’s a little bit earlier than we’ve seen in some years, but not wildly unseasonal,” said Dr. Catherine Brown, an epidemiologist and public health veterinarian at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

“It occurs every single year and we see cases every single day, but the numbers remain relatively small,” Brown said. “Last year was actually a little bit of a big year for us where we had, I believe, 18 human cases of West Nile virus.” She explained that most people who get the virus won’t have symptoms, but she suggests anyone experiencing fevers, chills and fatigue along with persistent headaches and a stiff neck seek medical care.

3. Mary Bonauto, the New England attorney who argued Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states, marked the ruling’s 10-year anniversary yesterday with some optimism. Bonauto also argued Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, the 2004 case that made same-sex marriage legal in Massachusetts.

“I do think that there are people who will ultimately seek to challenge Obergefell, but I’d like to think the court wouldn’t take a case like that because marriage has been so protective for families and we just have more people marrying,” Bonauto told GBH News reporter Marilyn Schairer.

4. As national culture wars over how to teach American history rage on, Boston’s tour guides are highlighting the stories of people of color, queer individuals and women who were integral to the city’s early fabric. They include the stories of a genderless evangelist called the Public Universal Friend, enslaved people, abolitionists and more.

“We’re here to tell Boston’s history,” said the Freedom Trail Foundation’s Catherine Benjamin. “Queer history is part of Boston’s history. Black history is a part of Boston’s history. And trans history is also part of Boston history. So we’re going to tell those stories to people so that they don’t get erased.”

Can you still smell Boston’s Great Molasses Flood?

By Egdar B. Herwick III

A few days back I found myself shooting the breeze with a bartender at a small Irish pub near the GBH headquarters that has been a bit of a post-work, “third place” for plenty of GBHers over the years. It was unusually quiet, and he mentioned having recently come across theCuriosity Desk episode about fruit flies on YouTube.

“What are you working on now?” he then asked.

I told him about a few stories — one all about speed humps and another on the impending demise of the U.S. penny. Then I mentioned that we’d soon be debutingour most ambitious video piece to date: a deep dive into the Great Molasses Flood in Boston’s North End in 1919, when 21 people were killed and more than 150 injured after a tank holding more than 2 million gallons of molasses burst and its contents flooded the streets.

“You know you can still smell that,” he said.

This was music to my ears!

Of course, it was by no means the first time I’d heard this bit of Boston lore. I’m willing to bet more than a few of you reading this now have heard the same thing. The fact that it’s so oft repeated is why we had decided to make the question – “Can you actually still smell Boston’s Great Molasses Flood?” – our entry point for this story.

And can you?

“Of all of the senses, smell is the most mysterious and — as scientists — we understand the least,” said Harvard neurobiologist Sandeep Robert Datta.

Of course, we explore the question of whether it is possible that anyone could still smell molasses from this event more than a century later. Heck, we evenenlist folks in a blind smell test to help us get to the bottom if it.

But the whole idea behind the Curiosity Desk is the notion that, sometimes, if you ask the right question — even a simple one — you open a door. Often you walk through that door in the hopes of finding an answer, only to discover just how many more questions there are to ask and explore.

And so, we also hear from historians and authors about the details and legacy of the Great Molasses Flood today.

“This tragedy happened when there was almost no regulation whatsoever…this tank didn’t even require a building permit,” said Stephen Puleo, author of Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919. “A whole host of things that we take for granted today in the areas of building construction standards, almost all of that comes from the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919.”

We explore the unique history and character of the neighborhood; meet the grandson of a man who survived the molasses flood, who shares a recording of his grandfather’s memories; and chat with dozens of people, who live and work and play in the North End today, about whether they have ever smelled the molasses.

I hope you’ll have a chance to watch it for free on our YouTube channel and maybe learn a few new things, too.

Stay curious out there.