Under the Elevated Track, a New Sensation: Silence

[DoYouEverWonder]

December 21, 2005

It has been a fact of life along Roosevelt Avenue in Queens for almost 90 years: The audible world comes to a stop every few minutes to make way for a mandatory 20-second imposition of noisy train clatter loud enough to banish thought itself.

As the elevated 7 Train rumbles overhead, it halts conversations and forces newcomers to hold their ears. But since the trains suddenly stopped on Tuesday, many people who live and work along the avenue have confessed to feeling a bit strange. The noise that has defined life along Roosevelt Avenue since the elevated subway was built in 1917 - as well as other places in Queens, Brooklyn and The Bronx - is conspicuously absent.

"It's strange, but the silence is more noticeable than the noise," said Councilman Eric Gioia, who represents Woodside and grew up under the El. "When you spend your life hearing the screech of steel wheels over your head every two minutes, you almost forget what quiet is."

The image of the rattling, hulking structure of the elevated subway has become an icon of gritty urban living, mythologized in pulp novels and film noir. And the 7 Train has been glorified by outsiders as the "immigrant express," serving Flushing's vibrant Asian community, Shea Stadium, the Irish of Woodside - delivering people to and from one of the most ethnically diverse areas in the world. But to those who live under it, noise is the norm.

http://nytimes.com/2005/12/21/nyregion/nyregionspecial3/22quietcnd.html?hp&ex=1135227600&en=03b2e2e3a4d89a3b&ei=5094&partner=homepage


I grew up two blocks from the El and a block from a firehouse. The noise never stops.