ssoc - sights and sounds of the crisis - Manhattan http://ssoc.teachingthecrisis.net/ssoc/en/tags/manhattan en Behind the noise: New York City http://ssoc.teachingthecrisis.net/ssoc/en/blogs/behind-noise-new-york-city <div class="field field-name-field-research-body field-type-entityreference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">This blog post is part of the investigation:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/ssoc/en/content/quantifying-risk-security-and-certainty-financial-industry">Quantifying Risk: Security and Certainty in the Financial Industry</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>When I arrived in New York at the end of August to begin my field research on graduate programs in quantitative finance, I was struck by the overall level noise of the city. I knew that New York was loud – I had lived there for six years – but I had just how many individual sounds contribute to the the white noise of the city's streets.</p> <p>As I explored the Lower Manhattan streets outside of the building where I conducted most of my fieldwork, I strained to parse what I was hearing. Delivery trucks, muddled conversations of passers-by, sirens, cell phone ring tones, these were easier to distinguish. But what about that low, audible-yet-uncharacterizable hum coming from... the buildings? Or was it a more of a drone? And why was it still there – and even seem louder – at 9:30 in the evening?</p> <p>The inside of the office building where the graduate program in finance was housed was, by contrast, very quiet. In the common area, I heard the sound of laptop keys, pens, highlighters, (calm) conversations about homework and (energetic) social interactions. The students usually had the TV in the common area switched to CNBC, a financial news program. The news was at times merely background noise – when no one was in the room, when students were talking amongst themselves – while at others a focal point – for students taking a lunch break.</p> <p>Every time I stepped outside of the building, I was struck again by how loud it was. What was the sound of the city? Were the sounds worth distinguishing, or were they more meaningful through their combined effect? At what point does sound become background noise?</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/ssoc/en/tags/new-york" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">New York</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/ssoc/en/tags/sound" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Sound</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/ssoc/en/tags/finance" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Finance</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/ssoc/en/tags/manhattan" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Manhattan</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/ssoc/en/tags/expectations" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel">Expectations</a></div></div></div><div class="view view-medialist view-id-medialist view-display-id-entity_view_1 view-dom-id-ba48b8949e27d3af5e66c644120d40e8"> <div class="view-content"> <table class="views-view-grid cols-2"> <tbody> <tr class="row-1 row-first row-last"> <td class="col-1 col-first"> <div class="views-field views-field-field-media-image"> <div class="field-content"><div id="file-83" class="file file-image file-image-jpeg"> <div class="content"> <img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://ssoc.teachingthecrisis.net/ssoc/sites/default/files/styles/content680maxwidth/public/Broad%20Street.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="" /> </div> </div> </div> </div> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> </div> </div> Wed, 03 Oct 2012 14:04:08 +0000 Stephanie Russell-Kraft 102 at http://ssoc.teachingthecrisis.net/ssoc http://ssoc.teachingthecrisis.net/ssoc/en/blogs/behind-noise-new-york-city#comments