The Adaptable

If there was something I did not like about New York City, it was the noise. Noise like a thousand leaky faucets, whose drips dropped together in a thousand different keys.

Pedestrians cross 34th St. right outside my apartment building door. Photo by me.

It is a frantic city that is never calm. The street corner where I lived, seven storeys above ground, had an average pedestrian count of 10,000 to 11,000 pedestrians per hour, according to President of the 34th St. Partnership Daniel Biederman.

I took this photo one ungodly early morning before leaving the apartment to start my day. Of course, New York was still wide awake.

Add the noise of that traffic to the screech and moan of stopping and starting buses, the emphatic and accented street vendors, the talkative horns of taxicabs, the steady metallic hum of construction, etc., and you have an equation that sounds like peace’s antithesis.

Not only did the city sound her fiercest during the daytime hours, but all night long she played her nocturnal cacophony that never quite became a lullaby when my head rested on the pillow next to my apartment window, which did its level best to shut out some of the city sounds.

Below these streets that never slumber, the subway was no exception. Everyone was just as loud, just as hurried, just as disconnected. Never look anyone in the eye whom you do not wish to engage in some way. No one expected it, and it was rude to do so.

I learned this fact a few years ago while on a school trip to New York City. I noticed that people were disturbed when I noticed them, especially this one lady who raged at me in the subway car when I moved my purse away from her as we held on to the pole that kept us steady while the train sped and slowed in the underground shafts. Yet, even while she ranted in her thick alto, saying, “I am an honest woman! I ain’t gonna steal y’pocketbook. I’mma  good citizen,” her fury only caused enough discomfiture to warrant vague glances from the fellow passengers. I, however, felt quite uncomfortable and hurried away from her the moment the doors opened to the blessed Times Square platform, lesson learned.

Despite this social disconnection and incessant noise–present no matter where you stand in Manhattan–the subway is different from the city streets. These shafts vein below the life above with a heavier, pulsing air. Unlike the upper air where thousands live and work, stay and go, everyone in these underground tunnels is passing, never staying long—save an occasional attendant in the ticket booth or a musician, bravely playing his songs to everyone and no one.

As I waited for the L bound for Brooklyn one evening, I was painfully aware of these differences. Breathing the thick underground heat, I stood on the subway platform with so many strangers–our only similarity being that we were all waiting to be somewhere else. As we waited, a grizzled fellow in a dirty white t-shirt and ripped jeans played his old, scratched guitar between the railway gaps on the platform where we all stood.

As we stood there, the melody of the beat-up troubadour’s familiar song seemed to descend on us, covering the platform with a film of familiarity.

Tom, get your plane right on time.
I know your part’ll go fine.

I liked the song, so I sang along under my breath.

The only living boy in New York.

As I quietly sang along to Simon & Garfunkel’s tune, I looked up to notice the man next to me, singing in the same hushed tone.

Then we did what we would not have ordinarily done: our looks met. His eyes were light and questioning, but I knew the answer to his silent query and sang a little louder, amused at the dart of surprise in his look. Then, in an instant, or maybe it was minutes, his stolid features moved and rippled like liquid into curves and lines that transformed his physiognomy into a limpid smile that washed over my features until I was smiling back.

I get the news I need on the weather report.
I can gather all the news I need on the weather report.

Then, a fellow to my left abandoned his unsteady detachment to join us with a robust although gravelly tenor.

Hey! I got nothin’ to do today but smile.

This man’s companions joined in his intoxicated warble. As our song spread across the platform, I heard little voices and medium voices, tall voices and short voices, joining together until we all seemed like one—a unit of travelers, marching to the same beat, our souls sharing an easy camaraderie.

This was a New York sound I did like. No, I adored it.

I still do not like all the noise of the City, but out of the noise, I found a strain of sound that I wish I could have bottled and kept it safe in my memory. It would be a shame to forget.

And like Hart Crane, I too “remember much forgetfulness.”

Photo by Dominick Chapman

I do not know how long we were singing together, these strangers, these friends and I; however, for a time in the suffocating heat of the evening underground, we were all New Yorkers with the same song on our lips—that is, until the L blared forth with roaring timpani to end our chorus, renting that veneer of togetherness.

And we went back to being strangers as we entered the open doors of the stopped L train and took our seats or stood at the poles—of course, no one looking the other in the eye.

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