“We all shared a feeling of hunger, empty bellies, bottomless appetites that when filled would keep us up all night. When we spoke we shouted, all our voices together, a chorus of pleas and protests, rooftop dreams, voices carrying from building to building, no sky scrapers to block them, we all shared a voice, devouring the ears that would accept it, that opened to us. We would be heard. We would dizzily take in those sunrise nights and talk about what it would be like to be heard.”
- from “To Be Heard, A Story About Williamsburg” by Roof Alexander
“To Be Heard”, 56” x 42”, Oil on linen
You can gentrify the shit out of my city but you will never squelch its soul. Stand on a rooftop anywhere in this city in the dead of night and one thing you will never hear is silence. I am not referring to the wailing of car horns and sirens; it is the low rumbling baritone that is always audible like a siren’s song. It is a low buzzing frequency, a never ending whirling that moves the turbines that power the backbone of this town, a rip current that weaves through the mazes and zones and area codes. That sound is made by the countless steps nurses take rocking crack babies and tending to AIDS patients. It is the bated breath of New York’s Bravest and Finest when they answer your call. It is the hum of cab tires taking to or away from what you may have thought was a good idea. It is a curse on a serviceman’s lips, it is the union of hips. It is clacking of keyboard keys and din of printing presses working feverishly through the night to never miss a morning edition. It is the beat of every heartbeat in perfect unison standing on this subway platform en route to nightshifts that keep this metropolis alive.