My job sent me up to NYC for a conference and happened to get me a hotel in Times Square, which meant I was just a few blocks from Max Neuhaus's endless, easily overlooked sound art piece emanating from a sewer grate on Broadway between 45th and 46th St.

The installation, Times Square (Nehaus), is maintained by the Dia Art Foundation, which also maintains the Lightning Field in New Mexico, which I recorded myself walking around last year. They also maintain a room full of dirt somewhere in Manhattan, which I may check out next week after my birthday when I head back up. I think they're also doing a presentation about Steve McQueen's gallery work the same day and the Anthology Film Archive is doing something else interesting, so, why not.

The recording begins with me in my hotel room and follows as I take the (very brief) elevator trip to the lobby and then walk along 40th St and I forget where all else. I think I walked up 8th Ave for a bit before turning down 44th or something.

But you can hear the droning piece quite clearly around 13 minutes in and then on and off until the end. I stood there for about an hour overall, watching couple and obnoxious influencers take pictures directly overtop of it, paying no mind to the eerie sound rising from just below them. I don't know if I ever noticed it myself previously, so I have no idea what I assumed it was before. It has a vaguely mechanical tone to it, so I suppose anyone not poisoned by the Futurist Noise Manifesto haven't been predisposed to the musicality of heavy machinery.

If you go to check it out, I suggest doing so at midnight. I wasn't aware of this beforehand, but I learned that night that all of the screens around Times Square present a piece of video art. I've been informed since it rotates between different pieces, but I have no idea how many. The night I went was a piece involving shifting squares of sky with black birds flying between them. It was neat.