Musical route

A deeply disliked stretch of road has proven a powerful inspiration for a symphony written by musician Sufjan Stevens. The man was commissioned to write a piece of music about his home city by the Brooklyn Academy of Music and he opted to compose his piece about the infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Called the BQE by New Yorkers, the flyover features narrow lanes, has no hard shoulder and is badly potholed, while high traffic volumes mean that jams and accidents are frequent and it has the dubious honour
February 23, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
A deeply disliked stretch of road has proven a powerful inspiration for a symphony written by musician Sufjan Stevens. The man was commissioned to write a piece of music about his home city by the Brooklyn Academy of Music and he opted to compose his piece about the infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Called the BQE by New Yorkers, the flyover features narrow lanes, has no hard shoulder and is badly potholed, while high traffic volumes mean that jams and accidents are frequent and it has the dubious honour of being one of the two most congested roads in the US (the other is in Los Angeles). Stevens explained that the BQE is so loathed by its users that he wanted to transform the image of this despised route into something of beauty. The symphony also provides the soundtrack for a short film he made about the expressway. The city authorities plan to replace the road but in the mean time, some angry drivers caught in jams could be soothed if the music were to be played over a public address system.

Related Content

  • CECE 2018 conference Rome: the sector powers up for digitisation
    March 20, 2019
    Getting the human-machine interface for equipment automation right is a lot trickier than expected. David Arminas reports from the CECE conference in Rome For many contractors, digitisation is key for improving on-site operational efficiency. But it may be time to take stock of progress and examine what does and doesn’t work. That is not to say that the anchors should be thrown out to halt development. Far from it. In the past eight months, the CECE - Committee for European Construction Equipment – led
    Read More
  • VSS developing business and sales
    May 24, 2019
    VSS Macropaver has been benefiting from strong demand for machines, both in the US home market and for exports – Mike Woof writes VSS Macropaver is seeing healthy demand for its machines both in its US home market and also for its export business. The factory has strong order levels for its Macropaver 12D and 12E models at present, reflecting a thriving market for road repair equipment. Doug Hogue is vice president at VSS Macropaver and said, “The D version is more of an export model. The E is more of a
    Read More
  • Underground routes for highways
    July 20, 2012
    Increasingly, and where possible, roads are being built in tunnels often for environmental reasons, writes Patrick Smith As part of the new M7 motorway development in the southwest of Ireland, the four-lane route crosses the River Shannon near Limerick, before it flows into the Atlantic. Centrepiece of the 10km long Limerick Southern Ring Road is the required tunnelling (675m long), which including the north and south entrance and exit ramps, means it will be 915m long. Completion of the work is planned for
    Read More
  • Transforming bitumen for the future
    January 30, 2023
    It is easy to say that the road sector never changes, but the latest E&E Event, held last month suggests this is not true - Kristina Smith reports from Vienna
    Read More

Highlighted Content