ACADEMIC WALK
By Dominic Tomasello
Can you imagine A-Walk today filled with both students walking and cars passing?
Prior to 1968, Vickroy Hall had not yet been built and a road extended from the St. Anne’s parking lot to the chapel. This street was known as Vickroy Street (hence Vickroy Hall). The portion of road that takes up the St. Anne’s parking lot is still known as Vickroy Street geographically. That year, automotive traffic was banned from the street, and it was renamed “Academic Walk.” Vickroy Hall was built later, in 1997.
A Sonic Barrier
Imagine how different campus life would have felt and sounded prior to this significant change. In the picture below, notice the division (marked with a dashed red line) of the campus that is created by the presence of a road in this location. Consider the sonic barrier that may have been created by this division and its effect on the unity of the campus.
When walking on A-Walk today, we no longer navigate through noisy vehicular traffic, and the atmosphere has become quite different. According to Thomas White, Duquesne's University Archivist, this change to the structure was created to unify and beautify the campus. As the visual aesthetics were at the forefront of the decision to change the layout of the campus, it is interesting to consider the sonic effects that also resulted from the change.
To help you imagine this environment, I created a simulation of what A-Walk may have sounded like over 50 years ago
How do you think life on campus was affected by Vickroy Street (before it became the Academic Walk)?
Noisier? Quieter?
Discouraging foot traffic across campus?
A place where students gathered? Or not?
Something else?
INSPIRATIONS
Basis of the project
Institutional policies that affect the use of public spaces can have a huge impact on the soundscape. In the early 19th century, street, or street vendors, were very prevalent in Paris. Their loud calls filled the city soundscape as they tried to sell their products. When municipal policies brought this practice to an end, the soundscape changed dramatically. Some were relieved by the quieter environment while others felt nostalgia for this characteristic sound (Blaszkiewicz). This relates to my study of Duquesne's Academic Walk because the institutional decision to change the layout of the campus had a profound effect on the sonic atmosphere.
Audio
The link to the audio reconstruction I created of pre-1968 A-Walk at Duquesne is available on this page. My project was inspired by a study conducted at Université Lyon-2 in Paris that recreates the soundscape of Eighteenth-Century Paris in an audio/visual format. This study was done under the guidance of musicologist Mylène Pardoen, in the effort of specifically replicating the sounds of the atmosphere in the Grand Châtelet district in Paris. The team of creators named the final product Visite de Paris au XVIIIe siècle (quartier du Grand Châtelet) or Visitation of Paris in the 18th century (Grand Châtelet district). This project was also created with guidance from historians and 3D specialists. As no known recordings of the original soundscape are in existence due to the time period, reconstructions/recreations are the best possible way historic soundscapes can be 'experienced' today. To view or learn more about the project that served as the inspiration for mine, please click the button below:
Citations:
Jacek Blaszkiewicz, “Listening to the Old City: Street Cries and Urbanization ca. 1860,” Journal of Musicology 37, No. 2 (2020): 123–157.
“The Sound of Paris in the Eighteenth Century.” Enfilade, July 13, 2015. https://enfilade18thc.com/2015/07/14/the-sound-of-paris-june-1739-1000am/.