Sounds of the City

Living here is so unlike living anyplace else. Yes, you could argue that it is just like living in any other city. There is a Starbucks one block away, the city bus comes by every 15 or so minutes, there is a pattern to the traffic and the sounds that surround you can be found in many other metropolitan areas. This even includes the occasional mental patient who walks up the street screaming about Jesus, talking squirrels and the aliens that are surely following him. But here we have a few oddities that you are unlikely to experience anyplace else.

For one, there have been many sparkling mornings where I have sat on my balcony with my cup of coffee just to eavesdrop on the monkeys. These beautiful mornings are why everybody else in the country wants to move here and why we pay such ridiculous amounts of money to live here. Some call it the sunshine tax. But on these special mornings, early, before the traffic starts, and when the atmosphere is absolutely still, you can here the animals in the zoo stirring. Usually it is the Howler monkeys. They really vocalize. But I have heard the Sea Lions once or twice as well. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does it tickles me. Of course there are our famous flocks of wild Parrots that cruise through every morning and every dusk. Their calls are distinct. If you don’t see them, you definitely hear them.

We can also hear the sounds of the waterfront. The cruise ships coming and going. Their horns announce their departure with 3 short blasts and one long one. My favorite is the fog horn. It is rare, but on those special foggy nights, its call is always soothing. Then there are the trains. Thank god we are far enough away where we don’t hear every passing train. (I have to deal with that at my office every day.) But at night, again when it is still, you can hear the random train horn from just down the hill.

Some Sundays there are drum circles in the park. This is one of my least favorite sounds of the city. It’s hard to concentrate on my tasks at hand with an unsteady beat penetrating my windows, but luckily the circles seem to spend more time on the east side of the park these days. Which leads me to one of my favorite sounds…The California Tower bells. Every 15 minutes the bells toll. At noon everyday, a whole song is played on the bells. It’s always a welcome sound.

There are also the planes, evening firework shows in the summer, men playing Rugby in the park, the shouts of a man one block away who yells at the televised football games, dogs barking, cars honking at random protesters on the corner where the bridge comes out of the park and meets 6th Avenue, ambulances making their runs from downtown to the local hospital, and the mysterious bagpipe player who pops up a few times a year to play outside our building…All of these sounds can be heard from the comfort of my apartment at the Imperial Tower. I live in my own urban symphony. While some sound are nice, and some obtrusive, I wouldn’t give it up for the quite of the suburbs. That would surly be the death of me.