What happens on late-night, drunken subway rides? One man recently heard voices... like, those typically garbled announcements, yet allegedly crystal clear. Upon wondering about the humans behind the familiar voices, he fell down a rabbit hole online and came out with a pretty thorough article on the subterranean sounds.
First off, last year some new voices were being sought out — at the time, 33 announcers covered 15 posts throughout the system, and 14 were soon to be hired. The curious author covers about 4 of the voices — Charlie Pellett, Jessica Ettinger Gottesman, Dianne Thompson and Catherine Cowdery — noting, "as the story goes, in 1999, Bloomberg Radio donated the time of some of its employees to the MTA as a public service. This group recorded various announcements for alerts that would ultimately become the sound of the underground for millions of New Yorkers."
And an interesting fact: most of the orders are given by a male voice, while informational messages are from females. Which do you prefer? We think the city should get celebrity voices down there — if drivers can get Sean Connery to be the voice of their GPS, straphangers should too! Or at least this lady.
