
This past Wednesday, my train trip from Connecticut to Grand Central Station, followed by a subway ride to Greenwich Village. offered me another situation in which to consider the nuances of silence. Generally speaking, the silence of nature isn’t a major characteristic of a city. And yet, the many little parks that we walked by exuded a sense of peace and calm, and yes, silence, as buses and cars circled by them. The quaint, tree-lined residential streets also offered calm, peace, and silence.
One my most silent moments of the day, however, was on the subway from Times Square to Grand Central. The cars on that line are all decorated with murals of books on shelves. You get on to the sound and movement of the subway, only to find yourself feeling the calm and steadiness of a library. That is silence.