Before the Hewitt building on East 7th St and 3rd Ave is demolished, the 130-foot tin can telephone (connecting the Hewitt to the Foundation building) had to be de-installed. The clear line of monofilament became a visible orange ribbon, drawing a 130-foot line across the intersection as the tin can was reeled into the Foundation building and traffic flowed below. Balloons carried the orange line out of the Hewitt building forever as it was drawn back inside the Foundation building.

I made a tin can telephone (spanning 130 feet across the intersection of 3rd Ave and East 7th Street) to connect the Foundation Building with the soon-to-be-demolished Hewitt Building of Cooper Union. Until the Hewitt turns to rubble on November 7th, the conversation between studios and disciplines in the two buildings will be vital.

Nicole Krauss writes about telephones beautifully in The History of Love: A Novel (2005) on page 111:

“So many words get lost. They leave the mouth and lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept into the gutter like dead leaves. On rainy days you can hear their chorus rushing past: IwasabeautifulgirlPleasedon’tgoItoobelievemybodyismadeofglassI’veneverlovedanyoneIthinkofmyselfasfunnyForgiveme….

There was a time when it wasn’t uncommon to use a piece of string to guide words that otherwise might falter on the way to their destinations. Shy people carried a bundle of string in their pockets, but people considered loudmouths had no less need for it, since those used to being overheard by everyone were often at a loss for how to make themselves heard by someone. The physical distance between two people using a string was often small; sometimes the smaller the distance, the greater the need for string.

The practice of attaching cups to the ends of string came much later. Some say it is related to the irrepressible urge to press shells to our ears, to hear the still-surviving echo of the world’s first expression. Others say it was started by a man who held the end of a string that was unraveled across the ocean by a girl who left for America.