Birds chirping! Frogs croaking! Leaves rustling! Lower Manhattan used to sound downright soothing, as a new virtual experience shows.
Manhattan’s aural landscape is distinctly man-made–the sound of decades of car culture squeezed into 22.8 square miles. Rewind to the year 1609, though, and you’d hear something entirely different: croaking frogs, chirping birds, and the soothing sound of wind breezing through tree leaves.