My first memory as a New York resident has to do with the noise. We rent a small, old apartment, on the street 57 almost with First Avenue, and I fell asleep at one in the morning listening to the train, and I woke up at 7.00 am with a hammer that burst a wall of the construction site of the adjacent building.
I got up early to make breakfast. I turned on the gas stove and made some toast in the pan.. I was careless and they burned a lot. The smoke invaded everything. The fire alarm went off. A siren sounded as if the announcement of the end of the world started from that tiny burned sphere.
It turns out that they warned us that the windows could not be opened, because they installed the air conditioning on its base, and if you opened the windows that device would fall. I had no choice but to open a small door that led to a tiny interior balcony., dirty and full of cigarette butts. The noise of the hammers then mixed with the roar of the alarm. I assumed from the decibel level that the Wyoming firefighters could come to put out the fire.. The smoke wouldn't go away. I was impatient because I imagined my neighbors loading their shotguns. I decided then that the solution was to open the apartment door so that there was current.. there was. Twenty seconds later the alarm on the stairs went off.. They already heard us in San Diego. New York was going to be loud, understood.
What do cities sound like?? Is there a sound specific to each place?? No poetry, Cities sound mainly like the engine of their vehicles.. But then you tune your ears, and some have their own sound that you always identify with that space. In aggressive Delhi it is the perennial horn of cars. In cordial Bangkok there is a complete absence of its use. In the first, they do not allow anyone to bother them while driving., in the second they are not allowed to disturb.
Mexico City sounds the alarm that announces earthquakes and the announcement of tamales. In Tokyo you are surprised by the silence of the street compared to the noise of the restaurants. In Rome are the bells that you never hear and always hear. In Cairo, the "barking" of aggressive street vendors. San Francisco, to the moan of their junkie vagabonds. The silence of the night echoes in Cape Town. Tehran resonates with its mosques and Buenos Aires with its goals because both pray to their gods. Madrid, to the knock of the reeds on the bars of the bars. Havana is happy music and Vienna is sad music. Hanoi sounds like a swarm of motorcycles. Addis Abeba, on his mountain, to the “laughter” of the hyenas. Maputo, to the radios of the house guards at night. Managua, to happy and poor children. Johannesburg, to a funeral...
Tehran resonates with its mosques and Buenos Aires with its goals because both pray to their gods
And New York screams.
NY has a hoarse throat. There are many voices and many different accents speaking the same language. They are screams. Of all kinds. Screams over mobile phones. crazy screams. cries of sorrow. shouts of revelry. Screams in restaurants. Screams of the sirens that bounce off the walls of the skyscrapers and deafen the city. Screams of singers. Shouts of admiration in the stalls. screams of pleasure. And, especially, cries of protest.
New York is the heir to Babylon. Here there are so many people from so many different places that all countries celebrate their national days in the streets. Most of the doormen in our building are Albanian; the optician lady is Cuban; my physiotherapist, Cristina, she is filipina; The one who controlled the Central Park tennis courts was Argentine; The guy who came to fix the refrigerator was Russian.; The person who deactivated the fire alarms that I told you about at the beginning was also called Javier and was from Puerto Rico.; our real estate agent, Mirka, He is from Slovakia; our best local friend, Shabbir, is indian. In the supermarket I pay Mexican cashiers. My doctor is Italian. The owners of the house I live in are from Bangladesh.
And that is the soul of this city, the screams in all those languages. And all of that is threatened with ceasing to exist now that some persecute non-English speakers, to non-whites, to the non-pure, without recognizing that the Big Apple is what it is because it knew how to integrate everyone without the need for anyone to give up anything. She was worried that everyone would add, without the misgivings that the locals deserved more. Not out of kindness, but because they were all from outside, and those inside were dead or confined to meadows and reserves. An empire was built on the meritocracy of the fittest, and then the passports were distributed.
The Big Apple is what it is because it knew how to integrate everyone without requiring anyone to give up anything.
My house is next to the UN and the park Dag Hammarskjöld, a huge rectangular square that is a kind of vagabonds' abode, vegetable market on Wednesdays, playground for grandchildren and grandparents, and global manifestodrome all year. In those months I have seen all kinds of concentrations there. But in the week before, and during the week in which the United Nations General Assembly was being held, protests accumulated. There was even sharing space between different nationalities.
on saturday 20 September on one side of the square were the Iranian opponents and on the other the Burmese. In the middle of that, the Chinese opposed to the Communist Party and the very active followers of the Falun Gong movement appeared.
The following days, the pro-Palestine movements took over the streets. Police barricaded Dag Hammarskjöld Square, and the protesters moved in front of a small square that is right under my window. I once saw posters that talked about genocide, but they were not referring to Palestine but to Sudan. They shared pain, so they ended up mixing and others also sharing protest. Just at that moment a girl passed by and took photos of them giving them a comb and walked away telling them to fuck off.. a little later, Some boys arrived with a Nicaraguan flag protesting against the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega.
The next few days happened more of the same.. The pro-Palestine movements, perennials, they mixed, there was no other option for space, with protests from Filipinos, a concentration from Guinea Bissau and another from Zimbabwe. Until Friday came, the day the president of Israel, Netanyahu, spoke in the Assembly.
And what happened is that hatred spread, a hate with disgust, a violent hatred. Some were trying to talk, but it always ended in a vomit of contempt with bloodshot eyes
That day I waited for the great march that came down the street 48 and entered Second Avenue to Dag Hammarskjöld Square. I estimate that they would be between 2000 the 3000 People. The Police allowed them access. I noticed that behind some fences there were two dozen protesters with Israeli flags, U.S., and caps with the legend MAGA (Make America Great Again).
I decided to stand on the other side of the fence and see what was happening between them.. And what happened is that hatred spread, a hate with disgust, a violent hatred. Some were trying to talk, but it always ended in a vomit of contempt with bloodshot eyes. Several times I thought they would come to blows while police officers only intervened when some bodies were very close.
First I stood next to a group of orthodox Jews, from the group “Rabbis for Palestine” or “Neturei Karta”, who support the Palestinians and criticize the Zionism of Israel and Netanyahu. “You do not speak in the name of the Jewish people”, said a guy from a megaphone who alternated the speaker with his son, that he couldn't have been more than six years old. By then the screams were already barking., grunts, burping or gurgling. with voice, with hands.
I wrote down some things that a woman in a blue cap said, for Israeli, that mixed English and Spanish. He had the ability to insult in two languages. “Come here motherfucker and I'll show you who I am. You are a terrorist and you are very ugly”. “Your mother is a whore.”. “Go fight for your rapist heroes.”. And drool and carrion came out of his face..
I didn't tell him that they had just shouted that "Muslims are terrorists". Not for fear that he would keep his promise, but for fear of listening to his tirade about homelands and gods
and on the other side, stuck to me, an older pro palestinian guy, with the face of a grandfather who slept his grandchildren in his lap, I answered him: “You are their whore.”. They keep fucking your mother after she's dead. You are the prostitute of four cats”. And every time he opened his throat his teeth moved as if he were going to bite his voice to spit blood in his face..
It hurt to be a part of that.. I stayed silent listening for almost an hour to the hatred shown by some strangers. A guy dressed in a djellaba, tall and mustached, he asked me at one point: "What did they say?"?! What have they said?! Have they messed with the Muslims? Because if they have messed with the Muslims, he jumped over the fence right now and cut their throats.. "I don't allow that.".
And I looked at him with boredom and did not tell him that they had just shouted that “Muslims are terrorists.”. Not for fear that he would keep his promise, but for fear of listening to his tirade about homelands and gods. And right on the other side, a big, muscular guy in a black t-shirt, and a flag half of Israel and the United States, one by one he challenged any of the opponents to leave the premises and go to a place without police where they could play honor and lips..
And then something almost comical happened.. Suddenly, a large group of Bangladeshi protesters entered the square, I didn't quite understand what they were saying. And suddenly the Chinese from Falun Gong also passed through the middle of the fences between the pro-Palestine and the pro-Israel people.. And everything was mixed. And all that space was a place where people legitimately came to raise their voices with the certainty that they shouted in Manhattan and the echo reached Jerusalem., Daca, Beijing or Managua. That's what differentiates New York from the rest of the cities on this planet.. Only here are people from all those places able to hate each other. and those screams, even those bastard screams of hate, They are the essence and success of this city.
