noisy new york

I've mentioned before that New York is a noisy place-even at night. It is for this reason that I am grateful that I have spent the majority of my life living on busy roads-90th South, 13th West, and Redwood Road (both pre-construction and during construction). I'm not sure I would be able to sleep if it were too quiet. And it is not quiet here-people talking, loud music, horns honking, sirens of all sorts, car alarms, occasional domestic disputes, etc. Usually I just sleep through it all or fall asleep despite it. It certainly keeps things interesting when I'm up in the middle of the night feeding the baby. There has been one thing, however, that awakened me in the middle of the night. It occurred several weeks ago. I was dreaming about fire engines and woke up at 1:30 in the morning to hear, surprise, sirens-lots of sirens-and see flashing lights. I looked out the windows in our bedroom and saw six (count them, six) fire trucks, several ambulances, dozens of firefighters, and lots of bystanders. Let me remind you it was 1:30 in the morning yet it looked like half the neighborhood was out. There was a fire in the building across the street. I could see smoke coming from one of the apartments and watched the huge ladder truck send the ladder up to the window. I watched firemen going into and out of the building for about 20 minutes. Then I climbed back in bed and went back to sleep. I assume they got the fire out quickly as I slept soundly the rest of the night. Oddly enough, there didn't seem to be much evidence the next morning of the fire except for the smoke stain on the side of the building.