The Sounding Board

The Sounds of Academy Place:
St.George
by Robin Locke Monda
I live in one of two nearly identical red brick apartment buildings situated halfway up a steep, two-block stretch of Hamilton Avenue. Hamilton is a one-way street (“going up!”) that begins on Richmond Terrace, directly across from Staten Island’s baseball stadium. The stadium overlooks the September 11th memorial, “Postcards”, with its breathtaking views of New York Harbor, Manhattan and New Jersey. I am a block from the family courthouse and the 120 Police Precinct, and three blocks from Borough Hall and the St. George Ferry Terminal. read more>

The Aural Waterway
by Dan Icolari
I'm a writer. No, not that kind of writer—the kind who writes novels or short stories or syndicated columns or the longer pieces published in The New York Review of Books. Rather, I'm the sort once described by a kind-hearted copy supervisor as A Journeyman Writer. Or as the late John Leonard might have put it, A Pen for Hire. Or, to say it plain, A Hack.

Which means, as I prefer to think of it, You Got It, I Write It. Whether it’s an ad, a speech, a brochure, a direct-mail fundraising letter, a marketing strategy document, a book review, read more>

Audio Prejudice?
The Staten Island Accent
by Robin Locke Monda
Last year I invited Staten Islanders to take an online survey about the sounds of Staten Island. One of the survey questions was, “What sounds do you hate that are specific to Staten Island, and why?” Seventy-six people responded to the question. Answers fell into two equally weighted categories.

The first category covered machine and vehicle sounds. Almost fifty people cited traffic, screeching brakes, ATVs, garbage trucks, buses, the railroad, dredging, planes and helicopters. read more>