Sounds of Chinatown

https://soundsofchinatown.aanhpihealth.org/

Our Mission

Sounds of Chinatown aims to create a living record of the sounds that add to the unique culture and makeup of New York City’s Manhattan Chinatown community – recorded and described by those who encounter it. Sounds and noises in urban environments paint a picture and contribute to our memories about a specific place or time. This platform is a space for visitors to listen and share their various experiences through the perspective of sound. We hope that the sound experiences and data found on this site will also help to draw attention to issues related to the impact of urban noise on Chinatown residents.

Our website is a collaboration between researchers from the Center for the Study of Asian American Health (CSAAH) at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the Sounds of New York City (SONYC) project team at the NYU Tandon’s Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP), community stakeholders in New York’s Manhattan Chinatown, including residents of Chung Pak LDC, and local individuals who live, work and visit Chinatown, like you!

Chinatown – Through Our Ears

Chinatown is a thriving neighborhood within a vibrant and constantly changing city. Local residents and visitors to the area are exposed to a daily variety of lively and bustling sights, smells, and sounds as they walk through its streets.

Chinatown is also a neighborhood exposed to frequent change as generations move in, grow and build, and move away, when older shops or businesses are replaced by newer ones, or when buildings are torn down only to be replaced by bigger, taller ones. This is in part due to the fact that Chinatown is located in the center of downtown Manhattan, serving as a major truck route through the lower half of the city. The areas around Canal Street and the Manhattan Bridge are some of the noisiest in New York.

The impact that city sounds have on residents living near each other and alongside major streets that make up urban neighborhoods is hard to ignore. What is more, being exposed to loud noises may have long-term health impact, such as causing hearing damage – noise does not have to be loud in order to be harmful to health. Exposure to any noise for a lengthy amount of time may affect a person’s quality of life and mental well-being.

We hope this collaborative project offers a new and exciting way to engage with Chinatown as a living, changing neighborhood, and helps visitors to Chinatown think of culturally relevant and hands-on community participatory ways to address and to reduce noise pollution.

How does Chinatown sound to you?
What memories do the varied sounds of Chinatown come to your mind?
What are things that you or I can do to make sure community concerns about neighborhood noise are heard by those who can make things better?