What I Hear

Walking my way down 1st Avenue at 4 in the evening, the most obvious sounds was none other than buses’ and cars’ engines, tires rolling against the paved roads, and honks booming from every direction. There were no trains to be heard, but a mere rattling sound underneath 14th St coming from an L train passing by. I did hear the bell from the traffic lights go off for anyone who was blind. It wasn’t on every street, but it certainly went off more than I expected. Every now and then, I could hear someone blasting their radio in the car. I also heard the sounds of drills from construction trucks. It wasn’t very often that I heard people talking. Perhaps voices were the background sounds. Most people, perhaps, were on their way home or to work without company. Holding hands with someone was an indication of conversation. Sometimes a bike bell or a doorbell of a store would go off and interrupt a murmur in the distance and become the foreground sound (rather than the car and construction sounds) of the area. When I approached St. Marc’s some new sounds came into play like the orders of different customers and street vendors’ voices. There was a cacophony of the sound of moving items, the sound of footsteps, and the usual city traffic noise. There did not seem to be background or foreground sounds, just a dissonance of sounds. It was quite strange as I have never really listened to that neighborhood. I suppose the visual aesthetic of St. Marc’s allows for most to be unaware of these sounds.