Subway hums 'West Side Story' song
Posted on: Saturday, 21 February 2009, 14:08 CST
Engineers have confirmed New York's No. 2 subway train plays the opening notes of a ballad from the musical West Side Story
when the cars start moving.
The electronic whine sounds like the beginning of the song Somewhere,
The New York Times reported Saturday.
Careful listeners have been hearing the sound beneath Broadway since 2000 when new cars began using an innovative propulsion system, said Gene Sansone, the chief mechanical officer for the subway.
The newer trains run on alternating current that is chopped into frequencies that excite the steel and produce the sounds, in this case the beginning of Somewhere,
said Jeff Hakner, a professor of electrical engineering at Cooper Union. Other trains, running at different frequencies, fail to produce such a recognizable sound.
West Side Story,
composed by Leonard Bernstein, opened on Broadway in 1957 and was made into a movie in 1961.
Source: United Press International
Related Articles
 |
 |
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds