How to Escape the Noise
A Q&A with Nicole Kelner, author of the new book "Quietest Places in New York City."
A city’s noise can tell you a lot about it—from the roar of its transit to its rituals and celebrations (go Knicks!). It’s also arguably one of the more accessible metrics we have for understanding climate change, as illustrator Nicole Kelner points out. Through her work as founder of Arts and Climate Change, Kelner translates tricky environmental data into infographics and illustrations that non-scientists can wrap their heads around: how kelp assists in carbon sequestration, for instance, or how the albedo effect works. In August 2024, she extended that work into a Substack guide to her 55 favorite quiet places in New York City—a post that ultimately led to a book deal with Rizzoli.
This spring, her volume Quietest Places in New York City hit the shelves, offering readers an illustrated account of the metropolis’s most serene spots. While Kelner prioritizes green spaces, she also highlights some of the city’s more calming interiors: bookstores, libraries, and other locations that offer ports in the storm of New York City noise.
Along with the quest for quiet, Kelner has been cultivating methods for being present and mindful in a device-centric city: For example, she recently brought together more than 100 Q train riders for a hushed and phone-free commute. The next edition of Quiet Car is in just a few days, on June 27—you can sign up here.
I recently caught up with Nicole about her new book, the impact of art on sustainability, and ways people can be quiet together.
I love this project because it examines a much bigger, more complicated topic than it lets on at first: climate change. It’s a connection that a lot of people wouldn’t make right away—for the uninitiated, can you unpack the relationship between noise and climate change?
My goal was to welcome readers to the book as a guide to finding calm in the city, then share the ways New York is becoming more climate-resilient.
The loudest sounds in the city are often made from fossil-fueled machines like gas-powered leaf blowers, planes, or combustion engine cars. The electric alternatives are much quieter. I like to think that a more sustainable future doesn’t have to look that different; it could just sound a lot quieter. Picture more bike lanes, electric vehicles gliding down the street, and high-speed trains as an alternative to flying.
I’m also curious about art as a tool for fighting climate change, and particularly how you think about it at a personal level. What impact did you see when, say, your kelp illustration took off on Twitter years ago? How has your practice evolved since then?
My goal is to use art as a tool to imagine a more sustainable future. I love creating educational infographics that explore existing climate change solutions and inspiring people to take individual and collective action.
I started with creating infographics, but my practice has evolved over the past few years. My book is an example of that. By painting these spaces in New York, it allowed me to explore more creative ways of communicating climate solutions.
I like to create art that draws people in because it is beautiful, then help them learn something new about climate solutions in the process. A reader might see a pretty watercolor painting of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and then read about how they have the largest geothermal project in Manhattan. I hope that this new curiosity about climate can spark climate action.
In your research did you measure quiet with a particular metric—literal decibels? Or does the idea of “quiet” go just beyond a measure of sound to include things like plant and animal life, having places to sit, and so on?
I have lived in New York for nine years and have 2,000 stars on my Google Maps. I combed through this list and curated my favorite places for quiet. I chose not to measure by decibels because there wasn’t a way to standardize sound over time of day and day of the week.
My philosophy is that quiet isn’t just measured in sound levels, it’s about finding calm within and around you. I provide guided meditations and mindfulness prompts for each location to help you tune into the environment around you and find a moment of stillness.
Do you have a personal favorite quiet place, in New York or elsewhere?
Green-Wood Cemetery is my favorite quiet place in New York. It’s actually a certified arboretum, home to nearly 8,000 trees and 200 species of birds.
My favorite part is that a flock of wild parakeets has nested in the spires above the entrance. The story goes that the birds escaped a shipment at JFK in the 1960s and made the spires of the entrance their new home. I love going there and watching them fly in and out of their nest.
Quiet is often tied with solitude—but the quiet places in your book are often quite social (if, well, quietly!). Like climate change, loneliness is a scourge of our era. Did you intentionally seek out places where people can be quiet together? And how does “Quiet Car” and other events factor into all this?
I love the idea of collective quiet. I think there is a sense of intimacy that comes with being quiet together, and it’s so rare today. We are living through a very noisy time both in the physical and digital world, and creating spaces to slow down, disconnect from technology, and be quiet together feels like a rare and much-needed experience.
That’s why I designed the Quiet Car, where we do a phone-free ride on the Q train in Manhattan and turn it into an Amtrak quiet car-like experience. Riders bring an analog activity, put their phones away, and are present together. This simple act of not looking at our phones on the subway feels radical and magical all at once.
I think it’s important to find reasons to be excited about putting down our phones, because willpower alone isn’t enough. Creating these quiet spaces is a way to be in community, and being offline together is one form of that.
For the lucky New Yorkers (or other city dwellers) that have access to a balcony or other outdoor space, are there any steps they can take to contribute to a more quiet (and climate-resilient!) city?
Planting trees or plants is always helpful! They increase biodiversity and buffer sound. You can also talk to your landlord about switching to electric leaf blowers or installing heat pumps instead of AC units. These electric alternatives are more energy efficient and quieter. ⌂