If R. Murray Schafer has taught us anything, it’s that we should find sounds that we treasure in our environment and protect them if possible. His pioneering work in the World Soundscape Project drew our attention to the sounds of the natural world that were being replaced or drowned out by encroaching human infrastructure. This delicate balance, what he called the Acoustic Ecology was a rarely considered victim of our expanding human footprint.
I am not sure, however, what he might think of this particular example of an endangered, or more accurately extinct, element of the Brooklyn soundscape. I for one will miss this sound dearly. I am wrtiing about the mysteriously vibrating signpost, the Talking Pole of Willoughby Street in Fort Greene Brooklyn.*
*It’s worth mentioning that this name was entirely invented by myself.