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If You Live in New York City, Forced Intimacy Is Part of the Deal
How close living requires us to tune out the noise
Residing in Manhattan necessitates that we accept living with a heightened level of intimacy with family, friends, and strangers. It’s not just living in close quarters with one’s own family that makes us feel we are on top of each other — we are literally on top of each other, stacked one unit above another in crumbling tenements, subdivided brownstones, and towering glass buildings whose inhabitants are on display like an art exhibit. We hear each other’s lives play out like unwelcome soundtracks of our own lives as we try to inhabit our own spaces without constant auditory interruption.
I’ve suggested to neighbors I barely know that they take off their shoes when they’re home to stop their heels from echoing throughout my apartment or that they set a timer on the television they fall asleep in front of every night. When they’ve told me that their television is set to a low volume, I let them know that I know they’ve recently switched from Law & Order to CSI and tune into The Today Show in the morning. Lest anyone think I dish it out but can’t take it, I’ve been told that when my daughter and her friends run around, it makes the glasses in the kitchen cabinets beneath us rattle; I…
