The Hum Under the Times Square Grate

On the triangular pedestrian island where Broadway and Seventh Avenue cross, at its north end near 46th Street, a low drone rises from a subway ventilation grate. Most people walk straight over it. It is a work of art: Times Square, by the sound artist Max Neuhaus, first switched on in 1977. Neuhaus spent about four years negotiating with the MTA and Con Edison, built his own sound generators, and climbed into the vent shaft to install them with a loudspeaker. Keeping the power on was a constant struggle, and in 1992 the piece went quiet. It returned in 2002, with help from the Times Square business district and the Dia Art Foundation, which maintains it now. Dia describes the sound as a deep, slightly pulsating drone that changes as you move. It plays day and night, with no label to tell you it is there.