SoundWalk

The area I picked for my sound walk, was my walk home from Hunter. It was just after 3pm, so right as I exited Hunter I walked into hundreds of students going between buildings, running to the subway, waiting on line for food or just standing with groups of friends talking. Over the white noise of everyone talking and the city, I heard a student yell above it all to ask for extra white sauce on his platter.

There were sounds of cars honking and buses coming into the bus stop and settling. As I stood on the northwest corner of 68th and lex observing such a concentration of chaos, conversations of others would pass by. I saw a girl to her friend say “Yeah, but I have to work”, and heard a “what up, bro” as a group of kids converged to one of their friends.

I then began to walk to park avenue on 68th and proceeded to walk uptown. The noise of student chatter and hustling had completely disappeared, only leaving the slight traffic to fill the air. As I approached the corner, a woman starting howling in laughter at her friend/boyfriend/husband, standing a few feet apart from him. I took a right and walked up the east side of the street.

I ended up walking the same pace as a private school student. He had either keys or something on his bag making a clanking sound every other second or so, which was driving me mad.

The further north I walked, the more I started seeing little kids with backpacks running out of school to their moms, dads or nannies. Three boys raced in front of me, one chasing the other two. One of the boys in the front yelled out “You can’t catch us” to the one chasing him. I also heard little snippets of conversation between children and parent, about school or dinner, etc. At times I would be walking and surrounded by kids and families, stuck in their conversations all over lapping each other.

A woman passed by me on the phone and from what I got from the conversation. it seemed she was scolding someone. She was speaking slowly into the phone saying, “You...better…”. I remember that specifically because there was a lull in the natural sound and her face while saying it.

Overall, something I found was the difference in volume between Lexington and Park. Even the types of sounds were different. On Lexington it is students and commuters, maybe workers too. But on Park, I heard more kids and less from cars and the city itself. The contrast between the volume and types of sounds between just one avenue, was an aspect I found interesting to explore and share.