NYC Cacophony: The Voices that Save Us

Last month I blogged about the voices in NYC that we regularly hear -- those of media figures, politicians, and various other public figures and assorted characters -- that command us, that run our city, that influence our lives here, and that possess some kind of authority within and over the five boroughs.

But those are not the only voices in the air that touch the lives of NYC. There are also the voices that soothe and save us, that enrich and help us.

Two great recent examples:

The New Yorker Radio Hour has a powerful episode recorded in April 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic was gripping the city and upending the lives of every single New Yorker. They talk with transit workers, health care workers, new parents, and others who were trying to keep NYC, their lives, and the lives of their fellow citizens going. These are the helpers, the healers, the salt-of-the-earth people who we look to for stregnth in scary times, who keep our city and civilization alive. These are people trying to survive in a moment of great uncertainty, and helping the rest of us to do so as well. It's always said that we should "look for the helpers" in troubled times. These are them, these are their stories, the voices of the people who save us.

And not all the people who save us, who help us to survive, do so literally. Sometimes they do so spiritually and mentally.

In these hard times, mental health professionals and religious leaders have been much in demand, helping to ease the mind, soothe the souls, keep the spirit of this great city vibrant in a times when that's been very hard to do.

Artists also have a role to play here as well. For example, the Public Theater has created a radio/podcast version of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet called Romeo y Julieta. It is a groundbreaking bilingual adaptation of the play, in Spanish and English, that takes this very old, very famous work and gives it a new life and vibrancy, a new relevance, to this very different time and place. When we look back at the art created in this bizarre, frightening time, this kind of work will be a prime example of how the aritsts, the creators, helped to save our sanity and souls.