Mysterious Noises on 46th Street | Times Square New York City
Max Neuhaus, 1999
In the midst of Times Square, the bustling, light filled, people-packed, center of New York City, there is a secret. As many as one thousand people in an hour cross the pedestrian island that runs between 45th and 46th Street where Broadway and 7th Avenue intersect, not noticing that there is anything that differentiates this island from all the others in Manhattan. However those people with particularly open ears, or those who happen to be walking slightly below the average New York pace, may notice a mysterious humming noise, rather like the clanking of a distant machine.If any of these people were to pause and stand still for a moment, the machine noise would begin to merge with a sound like church bells, seeming to emanate from some unseen place in the sky. They would look up, searching for the origin of the sound, but what they would see are the lights, buildings and advertisements of Times Square backed not by traffic, hollering, and rushing, but by strangely beautiful tones: gongs, bells and drones. The pedestrian island becomes enveloped in a block of sound, as the noise from the surrounding environment fades into the background.
Although no plaque can be found, no explanatory text to accompany this unique experience, it is, in fact, a work of art, entitled Times Square, and its artist is Max Neuhaus. The work was originally installed at the same site from 1977-1992, at which point Neuhaus dismantled it because he had to return to Europe and the piece required constant monitoring. However, Times Square was missed, and during 2001 and 2002, the Times Square Street Business Improvement District (BID), Christine Burgin, the MTA Arts for Transit, and the Dia Art Foundation collaborated to reinstate Neuhaus's project. The block of sound returned to 46th Street on 22 May 2002, where it has remained for the public to experience twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Neuhaus entering his Times Square installation
While standing inside Neuhaus's project, the sound seems most intense at the level right above your head, enhancing the illusion that the noises have no agent. Neuhaus says the sound must be made to be "almost plausible," so that when people can't find any immediate cause, they think it comes from the subway. In reality, they are correct that the sound originates in the subway chamber below. The North side of the pedestrian island, at 46th Street, is covered by a large subway grating which spans an area of the Times Square 42nd Street station where several subway tunnels intersect. The block of sound that seems to hover above the island is created from resonances that are already present below the ground due to this unusual tunnel junction. Neuhaus listened closely to these sounds, and he built a machine that would amplify and enhance the resonances so they could be heard above ground. He then spent months creating the block of sound that we now experience. Neuhaus did this without the aid of computer or electronic music, and the block of sound is built entirely from already existing resonances. For this reason, Neuhaus speaks of "building" rather than "composing" his sound.Experiencing Times Square involves more than aural sensation, however. Neuhaus in fact argues that art should privilege the visual and the aural sensations equally. This is interesting because Neuhaus himself does not create a visual component to his installation; he hides the machinery that allows us to hear the block of sound underground. Neuhaus says the visual component is Times Square's "billboards, moving neon signs, office buildings, hotels, theaters, porno centers and electronic game emporiums." The visual component is also the thousands of people who are potential experiencers of his work: the "tourists, theatergoers, commuters, pimps, shoppers, hucksters and office workers." Often, when these people shift from the observed to the observers, stumbling into "Times Square," they claim the sounds they hear as a phenomenon of their own discovery. Because the work remains anonymous, they do not think it could be an artist's construction.
When a person stands within the block of sound, the surrounding environment becomes cinematic. The people rush past, the lights flash, the cars stop and start, but the viewer is free to become a passive observer, detached from what he or she was previously immersed in. The sound block becomes peaceful; a place of respite from the surrounding speed. When I visited Times Square for the first time, I allowed the block of sound to temporarily dissolve the usual sensations that Times Square's environment provokes, and I soon discovered that I could play the space. As I walked around slowly, the frequencies I heard changed according to where my body was located. I began to feel that I could cause the sounds to change, or that I played the sounds myself rather than that I listened to them. The experience became interactive, and I felt that I had agency in a space where I am usually at the mercy of the traffic lights and pressing crowds. When I allowed myself to exit the soun! d block, Times Square's pace felt slightly subdued, as if I had been given access to a special elixir that could slow everything down.
After experiencing Times Square, Times Square itself is changed. There is a secret there, a small area on a pedestrian island that has the power to completely remove the passerby from the senses saturated environment of midtown. Times Square is a peaceful, private space in the most public of public places; a completely immersive aural and visual environment in the most sound and sight filled part of New York City. I urge you to go there, any time of day or night, to feel this unique stillness in the midst of the city of endless momentum and unstoppable light.