An Aural Height

It’s usually a quieter place by comparison to the rest of Manhattan, though it’s still prone to moments of heavier and denser sound varying quite dramatically from one block to the next. The avenue closest to home, along with the riverside avenues, is usually the quietest. It tends to feel the same throughout the day. There are the faint sounds of human conversation and/or movement. There are the occasional cars that come quite infrequently relative to the rest of Manhattan. Finally, there are the buses that tend to arrive consistently by schedule by rarely ever stop at these specific avenues. All one can usually hear from the bus is it arriving, zooming past and leaving in one fell swoop. But for the most part, one just hears nature at work. Now, the busier avenues, on the other hand, are just an amplified version of the quieter ones. An endless stream of cars provides a constant stream of noise. The cars are just whizzing by, sliding quickly through the pavement. The buses are there making the same noises but since the avenues are busier, the buses actually stop often and the sound of it stopping, opening and closing its doors gets added to the mix. The fainter sounds of human movement and dialogue are a bit more pronounced since there are more people in these avenues. These tend to be constant all throughout the day for these avenues. The later hours, after midnight in this case, muffle the sounds but they will never truly cease. The later hours, on some days, brings the street sweeper which polishes the pavement so intensely that it can be heard within a wide radius. There are some events that transcend the time or the place and some are more frequent than others. There are the arguments that can get quite venomous; their shrieks and cries practically reverberate through the air. Though it can happen at any time, these people oddly enough choose the night as their backdrop more. In a sense, they trade sonic privacy for visual privacy. Where they could have masked their noise with everyone else's in the day, they are practically the only noise in the night. They easily overtake whatever sounds nature was emanating and by doing this, they make sure that everyone is eligible to hear it. Another occurrence are the loud cars that pass by and often stay at a singular point for a prolonged period of time. These cars are unavoidable; they are moving clubs, speakers with wheels. That bass on overdrive shakes existence as it passes by. The drivers are content to only really play one style of music, club music typically of the latin variety. Perhaps, the farthest they've ever gotten away from that is the dreamy electronic style of contemporary R&B that has risen in popularity recently and even then, this is still music that can be played at a club, perhaps during its cooling-down moments. Now, these walking clubs have no mercy; they will show up whatever time of the day. They've shown up before rush hour, after public school dismissal, after dinner, 2 AM; they don't care. Perhaps, they are emblematic of the neighbourhood; a hodgepodge of sonic arrangements. Raucous, silent, natural, technological, man-made, all sounds that are found whether it be isolated or mixed. It's all over the place.