I’ve been all over Queens this week, commencing a completionist quest to ride every single bus line in the borough, if not from start to finish then at least for a significant length of the route. This week I made it through Briarwood, Hillside, Forest Hills, Flushing, Corona, and Glendale. Some of these areas were new to me, others not so much.
The MTA bus map is an intricate and fascinating squall of multi-colored arteries and connections. I consider the bus a better way to explore the city than the subway, for obvious reason: You get more window seats, and the pace is more leisurely. The subway takes you from point A and deposits you at point B. Certainly nothing is wrong with that. It seems more efficient, assuming Point B is exactly where you want to go. But from the bus you can see where you are going and at a breathable above-ground pace.
I like sitting in the very back seats. The air conditioning back there is ace, and the seats are just high enough that my feet do not touch the ground. I feel like a child. I am settled and possessed of enough sanguine self-awareness to admit that I embrace feeling like a child, and that maybe I still am one. My mother and I shared this trait. That is something I never fully grasped until recently.
I do not understand people’s aversion to the bus. I’ve known perfectly reasonable individuals who, when asked, are at no loss for words in expressing their disdain for that particular means of public transit. I remember the exact words of a friend who has since moved away: “I don’t care if it’s faster. I don’t care if it takes me to the front door of where I need to go. I wouldn’t even care if it was cheaper. I will not take the bus.”
Fine, dude. Walk backwards on your elbows for all I care. I just don’t get it. I should have pressed that aforequoted individual on exactly what quality of city buses he found so repellent. He would probably have changed the subject or offered an inarticulate answer. He had never actually set foot on an MTA bus.
My guess is that the bias is passed along from stereotypes against long-distance bus travel. My experiences traveling on the likes of Greyhound and such certainly confirmed the reputation of the bus as catering to a lowest common denominator traveler. But why pass this stereotype along to city buses?
This week I made it to Glendale via the mercurial Q102 bus to Queens Plaza where the R train to Roosevelt Avenue delivered me to the 7 train, which sent me to 82nd Street/Jackson Heights. That is where I found the Q29 bus. I could have taken a more efficient route to the Q29 but I am not especially concerned with expediency in these kind of jaunts. I also wanted to make the Q102 part of the day, since it basically stops right at my front door. The more efficient route would have been the R or M train from Steinway Street to Woodhaven Boulevard, and the Q29 from there to Glendale. But I deliberately take the bus from its beginning point when possible, so I can get my favorite child-evoking seats. The Q29 starts at 82nd Street in Jackson Heights. That’s why I took the 7 train there.
The destination in Glendale was Mount Lebanon Cemetery on Myrtle Avenue. Getting to Mt. Lebanon is by bus or bust since it is not really anywhere near a subway. The only bus that lands closer than to Mt. Lebanon than the Q29 is the Q55.
My mission was a follow up to the previous day’s failed attempt to find quiet at the Calvary Chapel. In the past I have sat in the chapel at Calvary and basked in its tomb-like silence. Tomb-like is an appropriate term to describe Calvary Chapel’s silence. The place actually is a tomb. A religious dignitary of yore is said to be interred under the floor near the pulpit.
My expectation of silence at Calvary Chapel was intruded upon by noise from tractors and lawn mowers outside. The area around the chapel is being landscaped, so there will be noise aplenty until that work is completed. The workers were cavalierly entering and exiting the chapel so they could plug their equipment into its power outlets. I am not particularly religious but it seemed a little disrespectful to treat the chapel as if it was a utility closet, or a garage.
I don’t know how long the landscaping will last but I may try again for this project over the weekend.
The reason for my trek to Mt. Lebanon was very specific. I had only been there once, about 6 years ago. From that visit I remembered a certain part of Mt. Lebanon as the quietest, closest-to-silent outdoor place I had ever found in New York. The silence there crackled, or so my memory dictated.
There is a special satisfaction in finding that a foggy memory holds true. In my ½ hour there this week I reclaimed the assessment that this space comes as close to utter silence as any outdoor New York location I can remember. The quiet is profound. I refer specifically to the area where Lebanon Avenue turns into a sidewalk. This is near the fence that separates Mt. Lebanon from the neighboring Cypress Hills Cemetery. I would like to be there at night, when I imagine the silence coursing even deeper.
Only a few sounds are allowed in this assessment of silence. Crickets, of course, are allowed. Crickets virtually define silence. Rolling leaves and the zephyrs which cause them to tumble are also allowed. That is part of what gives the silence its crackle. But certain intrusions break the magic. Sounds of the groundskeepers at work, airplanes passing overhead, sirens wailing in the distance – these are unavoidable nuisances in the quest for absolute quiet. Yet I managed to experience several minutes at Mt. Lebanon without those distractions.
Unfortunately my attempts to document this journey were scotched. I had my trusty Sony PCM-D50 field recorder, and in the spirit of the previous day’s Calvary Chapel project I plugged a Sony ECM-MS907 Electret Condenser Microphone into the device and spoke at some length, imagining myself a radio star. But I idiotically had the input switch set to MIC, when it should have been set to LINE. Most of the voice that can be heard in the recordings is buried under the gobbling noise of wind distortion.
As with the Calvary Chapel excursion I will try again. I had some good stuff to say at Mt. Lebanon (if I am allowed to say so myself) but I could have used at least a few type-written notes to keep things succinct. I also should try on Sunday, when groundskeepers would probably not be on hand.
I purchased the Sony PCM-D50 and an ultra-sensitive nature microphone some years ago with the intention of recording a specific sound phenomenon I heard at Calvary Cemetery. If you sit at a certain spot in the Valley of the Mausoleums you’ll hear sounds of traffic from the Kosciuszko Bridge deflecting off the tombstones. Car horns, truck snorts, and the curiously terrifying sound of the Kosciuszko’s rattling all sound like they emanate from the hillside of Section 1-West, which (by the way) was the filming location of the funeral scene from “The Godfather.” It’s like a game of audio pinball, trying to guess which stones off which the sound batted. One time I heard John Sterling, the Yankees radio play-by-play announcer, make a call from someone’s car radio. There are not that many tombstones on this hill. Like the bodies buried there most of the sound that comes from the bridge is absorbed into the hillside. I tried to record that experience with the field recorder and nature microphone. I should have known it would be impossible. With multiple mics and 360 binaural gear it might work but I still think it would be ineffective without further immersive capture and playback equipment.
Sound, I think, is the blood of a society. Silence is its pulse. I think of sound as physical material, with texture and elasticity no different from a rubber band or a paper plate.
