Episode #45: New York City Blues

Shifting urban soundscapes

This week, Corrina Laughlin draws from scholar Emily Thompson’s work on the ever changing, always under-construction, soundscape of New York City. While Thompson explores the sounds of Manhattan in the early 20th century, Corrina records contemporary settings from Trinity Church to a women’s fitting room to Ground Zero. By comparing these two sonic environments, Corrina asks: have we shifted from the machine age to the surveillance age?

Links

Emily Thompson – The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933

Thompson’s sound project: “The Roaring Twenties” in Vectors

Music

“This is my last affair” by The Meters (intro)
“New York City Blues” by Duke Ellington
“The Mother We Share” by the Cairn String Quartet
“Future” by Cut Copy
“You Pretend You Own this Place” by Styrofoam
“New York” by Cat Power