Listening in on “The Lives of Other Citizens”

The Takeaway

All day long, we talk to ourselves.   Nowhere is this more true than in New York, a city where every small solitary errand involves crossing paths with dozens– or hundreds– of strangers.  
New Yorkers keep company with their thoughts as they make their way through the city’s streets.   But what are they thinking?  
A project called “New York Stories: The Lives of Other Citizens” attempts to map those inner thoughts of ordinary people by following a handful of the city’s 8 million residents as they wander its 300 square miles, making their way through the mundane errands of their day.  
Andrew Irving, Anthropology Professor at the University of Manchester simply approached strangers on the street and asked them if they would wear a small microphone and narrate their thoughts as they walked through the city.

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