Mapping the Sounds and Smells of the City

Borges would be all over this.

Sound-Seeker is mapping the sounds of New York City onto GoogleMaps. You click on a little icon on the map, but instead of getting directions to, say, the New York Public Library, you are suddenly inside the building, enveloped in the rich reverberations of mingling voices punctuated by surefooted steps on marble. The hall seems happily haunted, lulling you into a calm reverie, until a too-close voice emerges from the distance, or a sneaker shrieks on the smooth floor. Also: a Pentecostal preacher in Williamsburg, a food court at LaGuardia, the surf at Coney Island, and more.

Submit your own  mp3, .wav, or .aiff files. This is a project of the New York Society of Acoustic Ecology, as is the nascent but potentially very cool City in a Soundwalk. via MUG

There's still time to contribute to Gawker's Subway Stink map, a catalog of those smells down there. The list of subway stops still in need of olfactory identification is here. Smells do not necessarily have to be bad, but I do not know of any bed-of-roses subway stops.

My input: Last summer, the downtown Q train platform at Canal had an overpowering dead horse stank, but this year it has an overpowering anticeptic stank, like the juice at the bottom of the Amtrak toilets. And no matter what the weather is above ground, it's always raining down at the Canal Q, so you have to dodge the drips while you navigate the platform as it narrows, which it does, uncomfortably. In one place the drips are building up from the bottom to form a stalagmite, which will be knee-high in a few million more summers. But that's another map.

Send your smell reports to subwaystink@gmail.com.

mic photo by s_p_a_c_e_m_a_n
gasmask photo by charlie_charlie

Comments

[Fatherflot]

Please, somebody get the Holiday Cocktail Lounge on St. Marks Pl. at closing time, when Stefan the ancient surly bartender breaks off a bud longneck bottle against the bar and screams "get the fuck out!"

[bartelby]

I must admit I was the one who left the egg salad sandwich in the Hoboken PATH station many years ago.

[Brian Turner]

They got it right, the 6 downtown platform at 51st is the worst in the city. I always make sure to stand at the southern end on my daily commute, cuz where it meets the E traverse at the north end it is indeed Urinetown.