Escalator Music

There is one subway station where the weirdly musical wail of the escalators can be heard some distance away as you approach. They sound like kind of a howling lament interspersed with off-key drawn-out yelps and squeals. It's like listening to a chorus of coyotes and donkeys, or maybe whales. The noises are impossible to ignore, so the commuters riding down into the abyss of the subway station usually glance at each other with slight, embarrassed smiles - it's one of those rare shared-experience-with-strangers moments.