Affluence Killed New York, Not the Pandemic
The first thing you noticed, if you had lived in the city for any length of time, was how silent it went. New York has a constant background sound, like the galaxy has constant background radiation, and New Yorkers use it to situate themselves, much as astronomers use radiation to fix our place in the universe. Most of the time you’re not aware of it, maybe noticing only when it grows weakest, in the small hours of the morning when you can distinctly hear from all the way across the city the clanging of train cars as they move underground, or the lonely wail of truck brakes out on the street.
[Read: The struggle for the urban soundscape]
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the background noise of the city became weaker than any living person can remember. Researchers at New York University, measuring the drop in volume, found it to be as many as five decibels. The constant sound of the city—made up of countless cars, trucks, trains, construction sites, sirens, whistles, phones, aimless Con Ed drilling, assorted ruckuses, conversations, laughter, shouts, curses, televisions, music played too loud, and dogs barking too long—has returned now, but what does it portend? What will New York be like after the pandemic?
