'If you hear something, free something': What's behind new sound at NYC's subway stations

Today's newsletter is curated by James Ramsay

Weather: ☀️ Mostly sunny, highs in the upper 70s.

It's Wednesday in New York City, where commuters rushing through busy subway stations might notice something different coming out of the PA system: conceptual audio art.

Artist Chloë Bass said her work, "if you hear something, free something" — which is made up of 24 poetic announcements delivered in six languages — is meant to gently interrupt daily life.

“These announcements ask you to consider the space around you, the people around you, and your own emotional state a little bit differently,” she said. “It’s my hope that this project actually gives people back a little bit of their interior life in public space.”

Here are the 14 stations nudging us to consider our emotional states between now and Oct. 5. 

And here's what else is happening:

• The subways themselves have also been gently interrupting daily life — MTA stats indicate that service this summer was the worst it's been in seven years.
• Elected officials are condemning the violence that erupted at the West Indian Day Parade this week — and are calling for more gun restrictions to avoid similar incidents at big New York City events.
  • Overall gun violence is down this year, according to a Gothamist analysis of NYPD data.
• Police said an off-duty NYPD detective has been charged with menacing and endangering minors after he allegedly pointed a loaded gun at a group of teenagers during a road rage incident in Westchester County last week.
• Rep. Jerry Nadler, who has held elected office for five decades, said he's leaving his Manhattan congressional seat next year. Democrats are already angling to be his replacement.
• Rep. Ritchie Torres is introducing a federal bill that would ban swimming pools at residential daycares, following the drowning of a 20-month-old at a Bronx facility last month.
• President Donald Trump has signed an executive order designed to force cities and states to involuntarily place homeless people with mental illness and addiction into treatment facilities. Here's how this could play out in New York.
• First, New Jersey had $125 million in its fund to build affordable housing. Then it was reduced to $5 million during state budget negotiations. But after some uproar, $45 million was restored.
• Finally: Tracks Raw Bar & Grill has opened inside Grand Central Madison.

• Mayoral candidate Jim Walden is suspending his campaign.
• Former NYPD Chief of Department Rodney Harrison has endorsed Zohran Mamdani's idea for a "Department of Community Safety" that would deploy mental health professionals to certain 911 calls.
• The City gamed out how long it would take after Election Day for Mamdani — should he win — to actually freeze the rent for eligible tenants.
• Formerly detained Columbia grad student Mohsen Mahdawi has returned to class.
• They found an endangered leopard frog by the big Amazon warehouse on Staten Island.
• Cory Booker is getting married.
• David Byrne is also getting married.
• Of course Peter Tuchman, everyone's favorite expressive Stock Exchange guy, was once a doorman at Studio 54.
• Major Lafufu seizure.