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Sound Off: Urban Noise
Noise plays an undeniable role in music -- and in our lives. Today we kick off the Friday series "Sound Off" with a look at New York City's noisiest neighborhoods and the artists that live in them. Guests include Alan Fierstein, founder and president of the acoustic consulting firm Acoustilog Inc., and jazz saxophonist Miguel Zenon.
Soundcheck blog: John Schaefer, noise grinch?
Weigh in: What's your favorite and least-favorite noise in your neighborhood? Tell us why
Miguel Zenon site
More about Alan Fierstein
Soundcheck blog: What are New York's Noisiest Neighborhoods?
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I am starting to feel like Tim Robbins character in the movie NOISE! and i live in a thought to be quiet area...
Least favorite - Constant Buses, Trash Trucks, Honking and Car Alarms! Also there is construction on my street and the loud "this vehicle is backing up" beeping sound- ok i know this is a warning but when it is every other minute for an hour, come on!
Favorite - 5am ish ...birds chirping and streets are quiet, for about another half hour...
I live in Norwalk CT, which I realize isn't NYC but it is a city. When I first moved here from Brooklyn the first thing I noticed was that I can hear the Metro North train tooting. Six years later I still love this sound.
Worst sound: Leaf blowers!
Best, ironically: Leaf raking.
I live half a block from McCarren Park. One of the only city sounds that I can't handle are the competing tunes of the Ice Cream trucks. On the weekends, the truck will park and play his tune from dawn to dusk. One of these days it will make me violent.
Its good to hear that Washington Heights is the loudest neighborhood. My husband and I used to live there, in a ground floor apartment, and it ALWAYS seemed very loud. Cars, music, people on the sidewalk, sirens; you name it, we had to hear it.
Although I frequently wish I could just turn it off, this white-girl transplant from eastern Long Island has developed an appreciation for the summery sound of Latin-American music in Bushwick
You can't talk about noise pollution without talking about cellphones! Whereas it used to be possible to walk down a quiet city street, the advent of the cellphone means that solitary passersby will likely be talking. There must be a part of one's brain that registers that as being surrounded by more people ... and a greater stress must result. That's sure the hell the way it works with me, anyway. Regards --
Jeff Colwin
145th Street, Manhattan
do we become more sensitive to noise as we get older? I'm over 50 & have lived in the same place for 30 years but I am far more sensitive to noise than I've ever been. I MUST plug my ears in the subway stations & even the yoga classes upstairs from me are now very annoying.
Yuppie Yappy Dogs!
Mr. Softy is a distant second.
I have a neighbor who will find some song that they decide that they love for about a month, and play that one song over and over and over-until they find a new one.
whenever i get frustrated by neighborly noise, i try to remember that scene in my cousin vinny when, after many sleepless nights in the all-too-tranquil country, he was finally able to get a good night's sleep in the noisy prison - just like home.
so i've decided that if i'm going to be a real new yorker, i better learn to love it....
The two worst NYC sounds:
CAR ALARMS AND CHIMES (hanging from balconies and patios)...!!!
The sound of the wheels on garbage pails scraping against the sidewalk as they roll along DRIVE ME CRAZY. At first it is like an annoying ambient sound that you can't quite put your finger on. But once you identify it and start to hear it in the background, it becomes worse and worse.
I live on 8th Avenue in Midtown. I used to hate the extremely loud blaring of sirens going up 8th - until 9/11. Now, I know that those same sirens are a relief and mean hope to those in trouble.
The coolest sound in my neighborhood: late nights when all the traffic dies down and you hear the gentle "clip clop" of handsome cabs heading to Central Park.
Argh! Mr. Softee! My Hudson County NJ neighborhood is plagued by an ice cream truck that parks and plays the insipid tune from 9pm to 11pm every summer night. What children are buying icecream at 10pm!? We're convinced this is a cover for some other kind of sale...
I used to live at 6th avenue and west 8th street. I think a good candidate for noisest block in manhattan (2 hospitals, a fire station, tourist buses, grey's papaya).
but of all of it, the worst noise was the DAILY, incessant, "help the homeless" calls by a UHO worker that has permanently taken up residence (at least 4 yrs at this point) on that corner.
My skin began to crawl when you played that Mr Softee jingle. I can't stand those trucks.
I currently live in Wash Heights and it is loud, but i'm lucky enough to live on the cliff drop off so i'm high above the sounds. My particular apartment is so much quieter than where i used to live ... Christopher Street. In the summer, you hear people walking by and talking ALL night long.
OH i could go on and on... #1: my neighbor's Guitar Hero 'instruments' thump thump thumping Bon Jovi covers all through my living room. its a VERY noisy nightlife neighborhood, so i find it maddening that he has to bring it inside.
Beer keg deliveries! SO LOUD, the big thwank when the kegs hit the pavement, interrupts the relative peace of the morning hours.
I've come to love merengue and know the dance but cannot stand car stereos in the summer. Giulani's best move was to stop this with heavy ticketing. My latest gripe is helicopters at 6 AM. 181 St is now a traffic route for commuter copters. A few travelers disrupt the morning quiet.
I love my neighborhood but I hate my neighbors! The walls are paper-thin and I can hear EVERYTHING! I want to move, but I guess it won't be to Inwood, as I'd thought. Where, where WHERE are the quieter neighborhoods in the city????
WORST NOISES: the constant thud of neighbors' music; the street workers at 3AM (seriously;) annoying people on the subway and buses with blaring earphones, and their cousins, the loud cell phone talkers. Special mention to the pigeons who live atop my AC unit -- they don't chirp, they belch -- constantly.
BEST NOISES: ????
The sound of horn honking makes me cringe.
I realize that living in a city its unavoidable, but I live on a corner in Windsor Terrace Brooklyn near the Prospect Expressway where there is a stoplight. I hear the constant honking of frustrated commuters to other cars that don't press the gas pedal fast enough when the light turns green. It is so bad that on many many occasions...i fight will break out. Where both drivers will get out of their cars and fight over how they weren't fast enough. It is accompanied by lots of swearing and fist shaking. I must say though it has taught me to be calm when i find myself in these situation. I find it funny how angry people can get over a little green traffic light.
Since I was in college in Philadelphia 40+ years ago, I have always valued hearing church bells wherever I live.
There was a church steeple about 20 feet from my senior-year flat equipped with a huge bell that rang every Sunday morning, invariably interrupting my hangover.
Unfortuntately, I had a few years in suburbia where there rewere no church bells, and I hated that.
Now, there is a church across the street from me with a nice set of bells that rings every day. Ah, metropolitan life, there is nothing better.
I live in Inwood, and am very familiar with the ice cream truck you just mentioned. He sits outside Inwood Hill Park playing his music, sometimes until 11pm. My biggest noise complaint however, are car alarms. Car alarms go off very frequently around 3 or 4 am and don't get turned off for hours. The most maddening thing about it is that a car alarm doesn't actually do any good! What is the point of even having one if it goes off for hours without anyone doing anything about it?
I live on the UWS and for the record - we have a continual problem with very drunk, very loud people sitting on stoops in the wee hours and talking. Every weekend, and in warm weather, nearly every night. Brian - is it complaining when you're kept up until 4am as happened to me twice last week prompting my 311 calls?
my daily soundscape is some cocktail of:
the neighbor dog, yapping in the ceramic tile hallway of the apartment below.
disembodied voices mingling in the air-shaft.
clanging radiators and pipes.
rumblings and white noise from the HVAC of the storefront below.
it is a PANOPLY of sound that never ceases to amaze me.
Jackhammer and drilling noise! For months they have been doing construction on my building and using extremely loud jackhammers and drills on the outer walls of my building and apartment as they hang from scaffolding right outside my window. They are removing large sections of concrete on the exterior of my building bit by bit and there is constant hammering, drilling, sawing, and jackhammer noises all day long. The noise is so loud that you can't have a conversation while yelling at the person right next to you in my apartment! My ears are constantly ringing these days...Can this be legal?
I live on Isham, and I know that Mister Softee truck - and he frequently plays the song past 10PM all nights of the week... thank god I don't have kids yet!
As far as the radio playing, it isn't so much the music... it is that there are 4 different groups of people playing different music on the same block. The other clincher is the usual culprit - car alarms.
The nicest sounds up here are the birds, the school kids playing and the choir from the church who sing in the park on Sunday mornings.
Our neighbor, who is also the superintendent for the building, got a piano for Christmas in 2007. I would enjoy this through the wall more if they would learn a song other than "Boston" by Augustana...good song, but a year in a half is more than enough.
The neighbor on the other side...my husband and I enjoyed a particularly fantastic breakup through the wall of our bathroom. We were caught when the guy emotionally said, "You ripped my heart out" and we giggled causing their voices to become much quieter.
whisper rooms http://www.whisperroom.com/
I have to say that the evening I came home from a month of travel in Costa Rica to my Park Slope Apartment, I was shocked to realize that my bedroom (which faces the converging gardens in the back of all the buildings) was quieter than any of the most remote parts of Costa Rica by a loonng shot. I traveled all over the country, and stayed in places where there were maybe 50 people on an entire peninsula, and it in no way compared with the silence I found in my apartment!! I now certainly have a much better appreciation for Brooklyn, and it's apparent, lack of noise.
CAR ALARMS!
How about this guy Aaron Friedman, the composer that is (was) leading a concerted campaign against car alarms.
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/01/05/040105ta_talk_loew
ICE CREAM TRUCKS! A very close second.
been in washington heights for over a decade on 177 and st nick. i'm used to all the bachata and reggaeton except for when it's 3am on Tuesday or something. then i'm calling 311. otherwise when the bachata gets blasted, i blast back with bjork.
anyone who moves up here should know they are moving into the dominican republic, a tropical carnival island of a neighborhood so they should embrace the party as much as possible.
i was just doing some writing around noon and wrote about how quiet it actually was today. on gray days, people go into their caves and curl up. no party till later.
john! please help me. i tried 311 to complain but they said to contact the FAA. it's the helicopters. they never stop. and they hover too... i can't tell if it's traffic reporting or if it's Bruce Ratner surveying his empire in ruins, but it's ruining life in lovely Fort Greene.
Sunset Park.
Sunday morning.
5am.
Drunk upstairs neighbors coming home.
BLASTING mariachi. Woken, I bang on the ceiling. and they turn it UP?
Approach drunk neighbors? I don't think so.
Nobody wants cops involved.
Chalk it yet another opportunity cost of the city, and move to Park Slope.
Worst sound is a tie:
1. Every Friday (Sabbath) before sunset there is this bone chilling siren sound that lasts for 2 long minutes and gets repeated 15m later. Are there any decibel limitations on this? It seems to have gotten a lot louder a couple of years ago. I know you might say the same thing about church bells, but this sounds like the Luftwaffe attacking Brooklyn!
2. The multiple jack hammering starting every morning at 7am for the deconstruction of the con ed building next door.
Favorite noise: The Diapason sound gallery in sunset park. Laying on carpeted floor and listening to sounds on high end speakers....;-)
The car stereos in Brooklyn drive me crazy. There is no enforcement in Crown Heights. I see it like second hand smoke. It's selfish and unhealthy. More needs to be done. People may "get used to it" but they should not have to - and it could be affecting their health.
I live at the Chelsea Hotel (the first sound and fire-proof building built in nyc) on West 23rd. Street to be precise, which is predominately residential. Day and night, it has become like 42nd. Street with all the non-locals frequenting the clubs and bars. They have no respect for place and the residents. They scream to each other and on cellphones instead of speaking, and at the worst figth when the clubs close.
there's a new car alarm that sounds like war. that's what i called about the other night. there was no time limit on that one.
I agree with one of your callers. I grew up in the city and i remember when i moved to StonyBrook Long Island to go to school i couldnt sleep the first few weeks because it was to quiet. The silence was deafening.
... oh, don't forget CRAPPY LATIN MUSIC!
I used to love good latin music but my neighbors has spoiled even that for me!
Why is it o.k. for these folks to do this???
not to sound like a grinch here but if you're in a neighborhood that's quiet enough to hear a fresh direct truck then you don't have much to complain about.
Leaf blowers.
I can understand the snow blowers, snow can be rough
to handle. But leaves, with a bit of muscle work can be done easy.
Worst combination possible - third floor apartment eye-level with the J train so close you could hitch a ride off the fire escape, plus a neighbor across the street with stack amps in his windows facing the street blasting the same 3-7 songs on repeat all day into the night/morning again, PLUS a church on the same block with speakers at the top of its steeple which only amplify one or two people's monotone chanting/yelling every Saturday and Sunday starting about 8:30 and lasting until the afternoon. Basically horrible. Oh, and upstairs neighbors with a Rock Band drum set and 3 yippie scampering dogs with long nails that race back and forth constantly.
Seems like Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights are pretty loud, but as your guest from Washington Heights says, Caribbean people are used to noise, so there are proablby very few phone calls to record the noise levels in these mostly Caribbean neighborhoods.
Forgot: in my apartment in my (tenement) building, I can hear people thumping up and down the stairs -- sounds like a herd of elephants... Why do people need to be so noisy? Playing music so loud, TVs so loud, voices so loud.... Maybe my hearing is just bionic, or something... The upstairs' neighbor is the worst, because you get the sort of 'reverberation.'
So you're telling me I have to move to Bayside in order to get a good night's sleep in this city?
I'd move to the country, but I'd probably get bored fast.
Recommendations of quieter neighborhoods would be GREATLY appreciated. :-)
I used to live in the East Village on Avenue A. My bedroom faced the street. It was noisy until 2 a.m. or later, but it was a din that I got used to. People had no idea how I slept.
Now, on the Upper West Side, it's the HELICOPTERS that make me crazy. They are almost constantly buzzing on the river. Especially weekends, you can't enjoy Riverside Park without the constant buzz. The FAA does not regulate helicopter traffic over Manhattan. There are reports of helicopters passing as often as twice per minute.
http://www.helifreenyc.org/2009/03/13/letter-to-uws-from-ny-state-assembly/#more-261
HATE the central A/C in our neighbors' backyard. It is so noisy and the people in the house don't realize how bad it is because they are indoors with the windows closed and the a/c on! It makes it hard to enjoy our backyard.
AFTERMARKET CAR AND MOTORCYCLE EXHAUST SYSTEMS!!!
And I'm a gearhead!!!
ENOUGH! Give 'em all VERY expensive summons... PLEASE!
I live in an UWS coop and I hate my upstairs neighbor. I have no idea what they are doing, but for the past 4 years, at least 3 days a week, there are construction noises coming from their apartment. Banging, sawing, drilling. My husband and I both work from home and it is unbearable. The worst part? When we first moved in, they dared come down and threaten to call the cops on New Year's Eve during our party. I deal with their noise EVERY DAY - but at an appropriate 'loud' time, they wanted to call the cops.
The worst sounds are the ones that someone else is discourtesly inflicting: yelling into their cellphones, turning their music up too loud, etc--anything that suggests their pleasure or interests are more important than others.
On the other hand, I never hear screaming ambulances--could step out in front of one and never hear it.
Now that spring has sprung packs of motorcycles like to parade through town, and most people associate this town with youthful revelry so the weekends reveal that, but the biggest noise makers are the cities "finest" - the police, they blare their sirens at every Tom, Dick, and Harry for whatever reason, and it's ongoing, just zipping up and down the streets letting themselves be known, double parking seeming to be the favorite cause, but lots of time for personal convenience speeding their pass through traffic...
Yet fortunately there are the sweet sounds too, birds chirping, children playing, and sometimes in the wee hours of the morning you'll here a tugboat's horn on the Hudson.
FRESH DIRECT Trucks are the most annoying noise.
Admittedly they offer valuable service, however 1/2 hour to 45 minute idling and refrigeration noise late at night is the biggest pet peeve.
for my favorite sounds - in an apt off CPW years ago, my bedroom was on the back of the townhouse, and each moring I woke to the sound of birds on some ivy outside the window - amazing; Currently, my building has many opera singers and musicians from Lincoln Center - I have learned many of their practice schedules, and particularly love hearing one opera singer warm up each day at about 10:20. It's a sound that gets my day started right.
the worst sound is at 8 am, a car alarm going off and then a school bus stops to pick up kids and the honking the ensues b/c idiots can't wait a few minutes to let kids get on a school. a couple of weeks ago, the city cut down a ton of trees in the park and always started around 8:30 am so that was probably the worst sound since living here. my neighborhood is always noisy, some good, some bad. i really enjoy all the salsa music being played on weekends but hate the reggaeton or bad techno blaring on blown out speakers in the middle of the night. i love the sounds of the birds and the faint sound of the trains.
I'd gladly for trade chimes, salsa, train whistles, neighbors noises & certainly the cheery, insipid melody of Mr. Softee to give away that drilling of bedrock that's been going on in west midtown for YEARS. My block once an oasis w/ 8 or 9 sanguine parking lot spaces is letting the real bloodsuckers & sunblockers take over, no rock has been left unturned : very sad and obliterating to ones hearing(ALL SEnSES) indeed.
... ok last one: Latino Pentecostal churches...
what's up with that racket and why do the doors and window need to be open - even in the winter???
If the police just sat on the corner of my block and ticketed noisy cars, it would be like pulling money from an ATM. Especially considering the city's budgetary issues, one would think they'd be posted and ticketing all the time.
Repeat offender car alarms and cars with radios so loud they set off car alarms when they drive by are the norm.
When I moved into my building, I was assured I had rented a studio in the "quiet wing." For the past twenty-plus years, I've had to deal with a rock-music editor above me and an Italian restaurant's old and defective air-conditioning, etc. machines below. The restaurant thankfully moved out several months ago, and I enjoyed a short period of relative quiet. But now a new Italian restaurant has just moved in, and in addition to the demolition, drilling, pounding and construction noises I endured, I now face living with their eleven(!)enormous, industrial machines (air conditioning, etc.)just installed under my windows. Although the building claims these are "quiet, modern" machines, they make noise day and night. When one has stabilized rent in NYC, moving isn't an option, but the constant noise demolishes the quality of life.
What a great funny if painful topic John. Though Atlanta is changing, our home is about 2 miles from the state capital dome but we still live in a single-family detached. Therefore the density is not nearly the same problematic layered onslaught of sound as y'all have, but each individual neighbor that comes and goes in our very student oriented Ga. Tech neighborhood is still able to add or remove some serious hell.
I often sleep hooked to my iPod, multiple fans on, but nothing can overcome shrill voices and sub-bass.
All the neighbors moved in to our new building at the same time. Very quiet neighborhood. Our first night revealed a noisy metal plate in the street - not a loose construction plate, but a misaligned 6 ft. long hatchway into the Con Ed netherworld. When a car hit it, it was a little louder than a shotgun. We called Con Ed, we called the city, every day. Every night I would steal orange cones from a worksite to keep cars away from the hatch (which was always successful). A few of my neighbors put in a 2nd layer of windows - the windows were huge - 4' by 8', and the big apts. had 12 of them. Very expensive. Both window sets are double-pane
10 days later ConEd ripped up the plate and put in a brand new, silent, hatch.
You guys think you have it bad?
Every time our upstairs neighbor has a girl over we hear the moans, the grunts. We turn the radio up down here when we can, but that's only during the day. Sometimes I come in bleary-eyed to work because the noise started at 2 a.m. and kept us up. It's like a porn CD from down here. Visitors crack up. We hate it. Earplugs? A fan? We've tried everything.
Several years ago I lived near a restaurant with illegal ventilation machinery. Many in my building complained. City inspectors visited and issued summonses. But the violation was never cured. As months went by, the reason for the lack of relief became more and more obvious: bribery. I have considerable evidence to confirm this accusation. The fact that there is no noise abatement in the city proves we have a government that has no interest in addressing the issue.
The worst sounds for me are the inane created by people in their electronic bubbles--the hissing and thumping of an ipod bubbler, the cell phone bubbler who babbles on and on. Regarding the car alarms, I remember seeing some kids breaking into and then cutting off the sound of a car alarm, and my friend's comment, I'd be so glad they were doing that that I wouldn't call the police.
Favorite sounds, just listening to the sounds of everything, and thinking of it as a kind of concert. I don't have an ipod, because I think attending to the sounds which surround us is better than living in our own bubble. I do have to frequently wear earplugs, though.
GARBAGE TRUCK AIR HORNS
It's just a bad habit, but very widespread among the drivers. It is also beastly behavior post-midnight when thousands of people are trying to sleep. It's time someone confronted the drivers, perhaps through their union, or through their company owners. The DOE and police who are charged with air-horns enforcement shrug off complaints, coming up with various reasons why they cannot camp out at our corner waiting for a truck to blow his air horns. Sensitize the drivers and implement self-policing? Worth a try.
GARBAGE TRUCK DRIVERS WHO GUN IT
Many drivers cause their trucks to roar unnecessarily, racing down an empty sidestreet, then screeching the brakes at the end of the block. Why not roll quietly down the street instead? Not one second's time will be lost. Less diesel will be burned. Much less noise created. In '07 one of these habitually speeding garbage trucks lost control on an icy sidestreet near the Empire State Building and KILLED a visiting tourist. This one is not about just noise.
GET RID OF THE SQUASHMEISTERS
I don't know what it's really called...but since I'm from Wisconsin: I call it the Squashmeister. The machine that squashes the garbage inside the garbage truck. It's the squashmeister with the requisite engine-revving, that makes all the point-of-pickup noise we most commonly associate with garbage trucks. Obviously, noise was completely overlooked in the decision that led, so many years ago, to the implementation of the squashmeister-centric garbage removal infrastructure. Why don't the collectors just fling the plastic bags of garbage into the backs of huge double-bottom tractor-trailers that silently seal, like the sector-connecting doors on the Starship Enterprise after each stop. No squashing, no noise. Why not?
Thanks, WNYC, for taking on this issue of noise and for following through by presenting ideas to the relevant authorities.
The clip clop of hansome carriage horses, the sound of the trains in the background, observing the doppler effect, the sounds of laughter and clinking of dishes drifting out of apartment windows on warm summer nights, the song of a warbler.
Hate; leaf blowers, power lawn motors, metal traffic signs not properly secured that go clank, clank, clank in the night.
I live in Bay Ridge and I usually hear fighter jets flying overhead, usually at night. I speculate these are the post-9/11 air force flights over major cities.
At nighttime what bothers me is the ice cream trucks, boom cars, motorcycles and mix of half a dozen neighbors playing different music loudly at the same time. The city doesn't show any sign of willingness to help.
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