Under the Elevated Track, a New Sensation: Silence

[DoYouEverWonder]

December 21, 2005

It has been a fact of life along Roosevelt Avenue in Queens for almost 90 years: The audible world comes to a stop every few minutes to make way for a mandatory 20-second imposition of noisy train clatter loud enough to banish thought itself.

As the elevated 7 Train rumbles overhead, it halts conversations and forces newcomers to hold their ears. But since the trains suddenly stopped on Tuesday, many people who live and work along the avenue have confessed to feeling a bit strange. The noise that has defined life along Roosevelt Avenue since the elevated subway was built in 1917 - as well as other places in Queens, Brooklyn and The Bronx - is conspicuously absent.

"It's strange, but the silence is more noticeable than the noise," said Councilman Eric Gioia, who represents Woodside and grew up under the El. "When you spend your life hearing the screech of steel wheels over your head every two minutes, you almost forget what quiet is."

The image of the rattling, hulking structure of the elevated subway has become an icon of gritty urban living, mythologized in pulp novels and film noir. And the 7 Train has been glorified by outsiders as the "immigrant express," serving Flushing's vibrant Asian community, Shea Stadium, the Irish of Woodside - delivering people to and from one of the most ethnically diverse areas in the world. But to those who live under it, noise is the norm.

http://nytimes.com/2005/12/21/nyregion/nyregionspecial3/22quietcnd.html?hp&ex=1135227600&en=03b2e2e3a4d89a3b&ei=5094&partner=homepage


I grew up two blocks from the El and a block from a firehouse. The noise never stops.

[DS1]

1. I would not be able to live near that

Not at all.

[deadmessengers]

2. Oh, definitely

My fried Gabby, who lives in an apartment in the Bronx overlooking the #6 line, said she had trouble sleeping last night. My dad told me he experienced the same thing when the 3rd Ave. El shut down back in the 60s.

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. It took me about a year

to get use to living in a quiet place. Now I live on a lake with 2 acres. Funny thing it can be just as noisy when the cicadas and the frogs get going but it's a nicer sound.

[deadmessengers]

4. I sort of experienced the same thing

The street I lived on in the Bronx wasn't next to the train, but it was on 5 different bus lines. The noise from those big diesel engines was almost as disturbing. When I moved away to Georgia, the silence was VERY disconcerting.

[PDJane]

5. As a teen,

I moved from a farm to a working-class neighbourhood in downtown Toronto.

At first, the trains next to the house would wake me up every 20 minutes or so.....after a while, the only time I woke up was when they weren't on time!

I have to admit, however, that the silence is comforting now when I leave the city........

[TahitiNut]

6. It's funny how "rooted" we get in the ambient noise.

I've been (mostly) a suburbanite for all of my life. I'm accustomed to the noises of traffic and people. When I moved to Eastern Washington State (for five years) and lived in a semi-rural area that was almost without such noises, I missed them. I'd traveled to the Seattle area several times a year. When I'd get to the ferry crossing, I'd drive my car to the right place in line, park, turn it off, and get out and stretch. I'd listen to the noises of downtown Seattle, breath deeply, and feel myself relax ... as though massaged all the way through by the city sounds. I'd literally feel various small aches and pains dissipate as I felt "home again."