Sitting On City Stoop

Only the coolest city slickers can sit back in style and enjoy the serene sound of the urban sea in motion. To the untrained ear it may be indelicate, but for the mature metropolitan, this soundscape is the source of all that is known, natural and nascent in the world within and without the bustling urban beehive. Stoop, "a small porch," comes from Dutch stoep, and is among the few items of Dutch vocabulary that have survived from colonial times until the present. The word is in general use in the Northeastern United States. Traditionally, the function of stoops in New York City was to provide formal access from the street to the principal or parlor floor, where the private living quarters in a single-family residence began. Traditionally, in North American cities, the stoop served an important function as a spot for brief, incidental social encounters. Homemakers, children, and other household members would sit on the stoop outside their home to relax, and greet neighbors passing by. This sound uses the following file from Freesound: http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=4173