Times Square under lockdown

Our #StayHomeSounds project visits one of the world’s most famous urban tourist attractions, New York’s Times Square, with this fascinating lockdown recording by Geoff Gersh.

“Times Square is usually bustling with activity, day and night. Tourists, street performers, food vendors, the homeless, taxis, delivery trucks, etc etc all make up the cacophonous chorus that the makes Times Square what it is.

“Since the Covid-19 lockdown, that has all changed. Times Square has become a ghost town and on Monday March 23rd at 1am, I went to document how it sounds at the moment. Absent are the people, the traffic, the energy. Mechanical sounds from the nearby buildings now dominate the soundscape.

“Aside from law enforcement stationed every few blocks, not many people were in Times Square, at most maybe 10 at one point.

“The community copes in different ways. Most people are taking this seriously and staying indoors and some go about their lives with little change or adjustment that’s within their control.

“NYC has over 25,000 cases of the virus at the moment and that number will rise. My message to the the global community… stay safe and stay home.”