First thing you hear walking through Grymes Hill in Staten Island is the wind. The wind is always there, always swirling and whooshing, reminding you of its existence. It gives life to this place, and reminds you that the neighborhood is a living, breathing, thing. That’s just the background noise, like the sound of your own breath.
As I walked down the hill onto the always-busy Richmond Road, first thing I heard were the cars. Cars beeping, pushing one another to move forward at a green light. Cars zooming by, one after another, creating a blur of traffic. Besides car horns, other sound signals can be heard around the neighborhood, like the sound of people talking. Richmond Road in the afternoon is filled with students, on bus stops and street corners, shouting to one another about “going this way” or “seeing each other tomorrow.” Conversations fill the streets constantly. A barbershop on the corner always has people on its stoop, laughing or talking or playing music from their double-parked cars. You can always hear the birds as well, tweeting and chirping from their high perches all along the neighborhood.
In Grymes hill, there are soundmarks that you will always hear. One of these is the honking of boats. Although the neighborhood is not close to the water, the sound of the boats is so loud that it can be heard from here. Another soundmark you will almost always hear every few minutes is a siren. Whether from a police car or a fire truck, sirens are always blazing. There is a firehouse close by, so these sirens have become soundmarks in this neighborhood. All of these sounds come together perfectly, creating a unique harmony of serenity and intensity that is Grymes Hill.
