When Governor Cuomo announced on Thursday that the subway would not run from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. (so that MTA crews could clean), I realized that the gentle rumbling of the subway underneath my apartment unit would no longer be there to calm me when insomnia hit. The hum of New York City is a constant, and since the city came to a halt in March to help curb the spread of coronavirus, the sound has changed. The car honking was replaced by ambulance sirens, the tipsy banter of the happy hour crowd replaced by 7 p.m. clapping, and the noise created by millions of people navigating the city sidewalks replaced by a still silence.
The sound of the city has been turned down and altered into an eerie remix, but the New York Public Library is looking to provide some aural comfort.
The library just dropped a Missing Sounds Of New York album on Spotify, which they call "a love letter to NYC, connecting New Yorkers around the familiar sounds of urban life that they love and miss." Here's a night out the bar:
According to a press release, the new immersive album aims "to bring all New Yorkers together and foster community during an unprecedented time of social separation during COVID-19. The experience is a collection of audio landscapes that evoke the sounds of New York City as we know it, and transports listeners to the daily urban orchestra they look forward to hearing again soon." They also note that "the album finds comfort in the familiar... Each track uses a combination of sounds to create familiar, ambient canvases on which mini stories are placed: a glass breaking in a bar, a dance performance on the subway, and so on."
Here's the track list:
- To See an Underground Show (feat. Kid The Wiz)
- Romancing Rush Hour
- Serenity Is a Rowdy City Park
- Out in Left Field
- For the Love of Noisy Neighbors
- I’d Call a Cab to Anywhere
- Never Call It a Night Again
- The Not-Quite-Quiet Library
You can stream it on Spotify and at nypl.org/msony.
