NYC Soundwalk

Last week, I walked around Chinatown at six in the morning. The sounds I heard were definitely different from the sounds I normally hear around that area during the afternoon hours. For starters, because I was walking my boyfriend's dogs with him, I heard the dogs panting as they hurried to sniff every scrap of garbage on the sidewalk. There weren't a lot of cars out, but there were a ton of trucks. 

I heard the engines of these trucks, as well as the sounds and voices of workers unloading them. I heard every box and crate thrown onto the ground, and I heard the loud slams of the truck doors closing. A couple of apartments down, I could hear a woman leaving after what appeared to be a one night stand, heels and all. A few birds were chirping, but they weren't the animals I heard the most. Because it was still dark out and we were by the park, I heard the rustling of rats almost as often as I heard my own footsteps. After listening to a couple of homeless people fight over a bench, it was time to bring the dogs back home. 

It was interesting to go on this "soundwalk" in a neighborhood in which I was so accustomed to, and wouldn't normally think twice about the sounds I heard there. I realized that there were a lot more individual, distinct sounds that, on a normal day, would be blended in with a million other sounds of the city, without being acknowledged or thought about at all.