1. Subway turnstiles
Surely something that won’t be around for long: the satisfying crink-a-crunk as your hips push against the metal bar.
2. Macy’s wooden escalators
You can ride the old-fashioned escalators close to the Seventh Avenue entrance to the department store. They make a nutty rumbling as the slats slide up the slope and into the floorboards.
3. Corrugated metal wall at Erie Basin Park outside Ikea, Red Hook
Run your fingertips over the bumps in the wall as you jog alongside it, making a delightful bumpety-bumpety noise.
4. Street-sweeper bristles
Best listened to while still lying in bed in the morning, the rumbling swish-a-swish is the sound of our city’s works in action. Sometimes you can even find broken bristles lying near the curb: a true New York City souvenir (and, some say, good luck charm).
5. Brownstone cement
Strolling the sidewalks of Brownstone Brooklyn, you are bound to come across a basin of this iconic mix of Portland cement, lime, sand, crushed stone, and powdered pigment being mixed with shovels in preparation for a renovation: a heavy, gritty, sloshing sound.
6. Fort Greene Park saxophonist
On spring and summer afternoons, his beautiful strains seem to issue from the treetops in this photo, and are especially plangent in the rain.
7. The Queen Mary 2 departing from Red Hook Cruise Terminal
Curious onlookers can get surprisingly close to this behemoth of a cruise ship and listen to the elegant bee-ohhhhs of her whistles as she sets sail for the Atlantic Ocean. Note the crewmembers on the pop-out windows in the side of the ship.
