The New York Times

January 4, 2004, Sunday

The Sweet Scent of the Bronx. But What Would Martha Think?
By SETH KUGEL

Before long, women across America will associate the Bronx River with the fresh scent of their underwear.

Or that's the hope at the Bronx River Art Center. Inside a four-story former warehouse in West Farms that serves as the group's home, students and staff members of the nonprofit group have been producing sachets and eye pillows in fabrics adorned with pristine Bronx River scenes.

The center will soon begin pitching the products, filled with a lavender, chamomile and spearmint blend, to specialty stores and botanical garden gift shops across the country. And where will the fragrant herbs come from? Eventually, from a plot of land on the banks of the Bronx River. (Ordering information is available at www.bronxriverart.org.)

The river, which has undergone a renaissance in recent years, flows mostly unobtrusively under East Tremont Avenue outside the art center. But from a fourth-floor vantage point, it is suddenly hard to miss, running south toward the truck-clogged Cross Bronx Expressway and roughly parallel with the 2 and 5 elevated trains.

It is the river's proximity that the art center is trying to take advantage of.

''One of the things we teach our kids is the extraordinary relationship right here in our backyard,'' said Gail Nathan, the executive director. ''How do you make sense of this natural resource running right through the middle of the Bronx?''

Ms. Nathan and the staff developed the sachet idea in 2001, when they applied for a $10,000 grant from the Bronx Council on the Arts to begin the project. Staff members and students photographed the river, choosing about eight images from each season to use in the product design.

For now, the sachets and eye pillows are being stuffed with herbs from a Cape Cod distributor. But this spring, lavender, chamomile and spearmint will be planted in a community garden next to the river and right across the street from the center.

The project was a good fit for the center because its photography classes could produce the images and the market for high-end female pampering items looked promising, Ms. Nathan said. And because many local women have worked in garment factories, the area has good seamstresses.

Then there was the nostalgia. ''The interesting thing is how many people grew up in the Bronx and have fond memories,'' said Ms. Nathan, who was raised at 149th Street and the Grand Concourse. ''The irony is its history of just being devastated. A very large segment of that population is affluent people who left in the 1960's and never looked back, except in pain. They don't know that it's turned around.''