What I Hear

Walking through the shopping strip that comprises Steinway Street at the cusp of the evening (a little after 5PM), the sounds that fill the area are not the kind of sounds that one would think to hear in a shopping strip.

The keynotes that can be frequently heard at irregular intervals are the sounds of cars quietly passing by, the honking of car horns, music blaring out from the radios of other cars passing through, and the distinct sound of MTA buses slowly driving to a stop as they approach bus stops. One distinct keynote that occurred once was the sound of a police siren blaring through the strip as a police cruiser runs down the street on the strip at an accelerated pace.

These keynotes are typical of an urban setting, but for a shopping strip, the absence of keynotes specifically designating the area as a place of commerce is unusual. The only keynotes that I heard during my time on the strip that could be considered a designation of places of commerce was bland country music emanating from a mom & pop electronics store and generic techno music leaking from a gym, and that's a generous classification.

The sound signals that were occassionally present on the strip mostly consisted of chatter from people on the strip as they passed by. Overhearing brief excerpts from conversations in English and Spanish, the statements heard were mostly unintelligible out of context. The statements that were intelligible were of a woman telling another woman about a person not yet accepting their friend request, a woman exclaiming that "the bus isn't here", and most memorably, a woman declaring that "I don't have no meth, I don't have nothing."

Other sound signals that can be heard infrequently are the sounds of strollers rolling on the sidewalk, the screeching of babies and the clopping of some peoples' shoes as they walk. The strip was moderately populated with pedestrians, but the sounds of the strip was mostly low-key, allowing any sort of emerging sound to pronounce their presence effectively. Certainly not the kind of sounds one would think they would hear in a shopping strip.