Mysterious bell sound from NY subway station baffles locals for weeks

Eerie sounds in places like glaciers or isolated mountain valleys are often natural phenomena. But when a mysterious sound comes from a busy location filled with people and traffic, it raises suspicion. For the past few weeks, a strange bell sound at a New York subway station has left people perplexed. Storefront owners around the station are equally baffled by the sound, which the New York Post described as so shrill that "it resembles a classic school bell."

The bell has been ringing incessantly somewhere near Manhattan’s 50th Street subway station in downtown New York. The station is located at the intersection of 50th Street and Broadway in the Theater District of Manhattan, and it receives one train during the day and two trains during late nights. According to WanderDisney, some of the wall panels on this subway station's tunnel are painted with silhouettes of characters from Lewis Carroll’s "Alice Adventures in Wonderland," making the whole episode even more creepy.

With no tolling bell installed in the immediate area, officials are unclear about the sound's origin. Its volume seems to rise and dim abruptly, perplexing regular people in the area. Describing the mysterious sound, Adrien Gallo, who is a storefront owner near the subway tunnel, told the New York Post, “You hear it strongly only right here, and then once you go there, it’s super faint.” Gallo further said that this sound coming and going, is “really odd.”

An employee at Gallo’s pizza shop commented on the entire episode, saying, “It’s a nuisance, but we keep the door closed so you can’t hear it. It did stop for like a day and then came back on it. So it might be like a power thing. I’m not exactly sure.” Another employee said, “I called my landlord and talked to the old tenant Duane Reade, and they can’t figure it out,” referring to other store owners in the surrounding area.

Barista Katie King, who started working a week ago at Tiny Dancer, a coffee shop across from restaurant See No Evil Pizza, reported that the bell is less audible inside their café, adding that “it doesn’t really bother me that much.” While some people said that they heard the sound on June 23, others said they had been hearing it for a week. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, however, was unaware of this whole thing.

A similar occurrence was reported in New York City in the past when a mysterious sound would ring from the grates in the grounds of Times Square. The New York Times described the sound as a “continuous oooom-like mantra, a moan, a reverberating bell, or an organlike drone.” The sound was later revealed to be an art installation, according to The Independent.