East Meadow in Central Park the day before it was converted to a COVID-19 Field Hospital
Apr 03, 2020, 04:10 PM
New York lockdown sound recorded by Peggy Nelson.
"I live in East Harlem and have been going out for a solo, socially-distanced walk every day; my usual route took me down the eastern edge of Central Park through the East Meadow, where I recorded the sounds that make up this recording on several adjacent days at the tail end of March.
"The city is quiet yet not - birdsong mingles with the echoing sirens and helicopters, which sound even louder both for the lack of other background traffic noise, the perfect echo chambers of the apartment-blocked streets, and the increased frequency of emergency trips. Yet the overall ambiance is conceptually noisy still, not in actual sounds, but in what we know are the causes for the relative silence.
"The East Meadow has since been converted into a field hospital full of tents, for the expected overflow from Mt. Sinai Hospital, which is right across the street. This recording is my sonic postcard from, and love letter to, #StayAtHome New York."
Part of the #StayHomeSounds project, documenting the sounds of the global coronavirus lockdown around the world - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/covid19-sounds
"I live in East Harlem and have been going out for a solo, socially-distanced walk every day; my usual route took me down the eastern edge of Central Park through the East Meadow, where I recorded the sounds that make up this recording on several adjacent days at the tail end of March.
"The city is quiet yet not - birdsong mingles with the echoing sirens and helicopters, which sound even louder both for the lack of other background traffic noise, the perfect echo chambers of the apartment-blocked streets, and the increased frequency of emergency trips. Yet the overall ambiance is conceptually noisy still, not in actual sounds, but in what we know are the causes for the relative silence.
"The East Meadow has since been converted into a field hospital full of tents, for the expected overflow from Mt. Sinai Hospital, which is right across the street. This recording is my sonic postcard from, and love letter to, #StayAtHome New York."
Part of the #StayHomeSounds project, documenting the sounds of the global coronavirus lockdown around the world - for more information, see http://www.citiesandmemory.com/covid19-sounds