Fifteen miles due west, in Brooklyn Heights, Roberto Gautier greeted the bathroom mirror with bloodshot eyes. For the umpteenth night running, jackhammering on the Brooklyn Bridge 23 stories below had kept him up until dawn. An aged neighbor appeared at his door, distraught about the racket, having forgotten that she had come knocking the night before. Mr. Gautier's wife had arranged to stay at a friend's house because she could no longer focus at work.
"We're at the breaking point," Mr. Gautier said.
Silence has become a luxury in New York that only a scant few can truly afford, and cultural, technological and economic changes in recent years have added to the din everyone else must endure, creating not just one culprit, but many.
Giant rooftop heating and ventilation units confront residents of the newly built high-rises that face them, and the higher the apartment, the more exposed it is to city noise. Fresh Direct trucks with droning refrigeration units thrum in the streets. Home theater systems thump through walls that have grown thinner with newer construction, and noise reverberates along and through floor-to-ceiling glass walls. Helicopters crowd the skies. Planes fly new routes over fresh new tracts of homes, ferrying overnight cargo ordered by online shoppers. Clamorous new neighborhoods exist in places that were once either empty or served as industrial zones that were quiet at night. Citywide building permits are at their highest in five years, with more crews permitted to work through the night.
Noise has become harder than ever to escape, though New York City, now in its second century of noise abatement efforts, has managed to quiet some offenders of the past, like boom boxes and car alarms. Interviews with residents in affected areas, officials, soundproofing professionals and audio experts not only confirm the creep in round-the-clock outside noise, but suggest that its potential ill effects can rival those caused by deliberately manipulated, high-decibel assaults inside stores, clubs and restaurants. Some contend that the city, despite its efforts, has shown a distinct reluctance to crack down on certain offenders, like construction companies, especially in recent years.
"It's categorically the case that we have more constant and geographically pervasive exposure to noise," said George Prochnik, the Brooklyn-based author of "In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise," which explores the ill effects of omnipresent sound. "We can simply look where there were undeveloped spaces and noncommercial spaces, less intense transportation, less commercial activity, and all of these things bring with them noise."
Damon Winter/The New York Times
An apartment building in Chelsea is dwarfed by new construction. Citywide building permits are at their highest in five years.
The constant buzz of New York City is, to some, part of its allure, a life sign of a relentlessly restless, vibrant, ever in-motion city that stands in contrast to the sleepy silence of the suburbs, or to cities with hollowed-out urban cores. The recession was briefer and less deep here, and with that success comes a great deal of sound.
To compete with and pierce the clamor, some have only ratcheted up their own volume, creating more clamor. The Police Department now uses low-frequency sirens, called Rumblers, that emit aliens-are-landing yelps with vibrations that can also be felt. Motorcyclists install thunderous exhaust pipes, citing the biker mantra that "loud pipes save lives," and say the volume is especially needed in a raucous city filled with drivers lost in music, or texting, or driving sound-insulated luxury cars.
Efforts to mitigate noise are often erased. Car engines and exhaust pipes may be quieter, but the tires roar. Construction sites use muted tools and sound dampeners, but the rush to finish a project quickly can result in twice as many workers on a site, making just as much noise.
While the roar of jets has been dulled by quieter engines — and the retirement of the supersonically loud Concorde — people living beneath increasingly precise flight paths can feel as if they are under siege.
"For every step forward in terms of technology, we're taking a step back in terms of how we use that technology," said Rick Neitzel, an assistant professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Michigan Risk Science Center. "That's not to say society has gotten louder. But in terms of inescapability it is true. Our noise levels on average might be the same. But they're spread so much throughout the day you really have no respite."
Beyond harming hearing, chronic exposure to noise increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. Children in classrooms buffeted by outside noise lag behind, and their teachers report lower job satisfaction. Pervasive background noise may damage the hearing center of babies' developing brains, research has found, possibly leading to auditory and language-related development delays. And though people may assume they have grown accustomed to noise, a constant din, even at low frequencies, often takes a heavy physiological toll. Noise can cause stress even when a person is sleeping.
"There's definite clearly defined cardiovascular impacts such as hypertension," said Robyn Gershon, a professor in epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, who has heavily researched urban noise, with a focus on New York City. "Also learning impairment in children, impacts on attention, memory, and worker productivity." Sleep disturbances are also linked to excessive noise, with higher production of stress hormones, which, she noted, can adversely affect the immune system.
Paying for Peace
To assess New Yorkers' craving for quiet, and to understand who can afford it, one only has to look to soundproofers, who say demand for their services is reaching new heights. And they are not cheap — soundproofing a wall starts at $5,000; a single window can start at $1,000, with giant windows costing $9,000.
Devin O'Brien, of Brooklyn Insulation and Soundproofing, said he receives up to 10 calls a day from people hoping to soundproof, and has gone from doing roughly a job a week two years ago to twice that many now. Alan Fierstein, a noise consultant and acoustician, gets calls from penthouse dwellers who face rooftop heating, ventilation and air conditioning units, and clients who paid huge sums for an apartment only to discover subpar windows and walls.
Luxury trends, like the installation of car elevators and rooftop decks, have worsened the angst. Mr. Fierstein has also been inundated by calls from residents of glass-skinned high-rises, who have discovered that noise from their neighbors travels vertically along glass walls. "These people pay top dollars for these apartments, but they're noisier," he said, adding, "The further you get from the street, the more area of the city you overlook."
Marc Cohen, a vice president of sales at Citiquiet, which installs soundproof windows, said business was currently backlogged. The increase in building sites, the construction of the Second Avenue Subway, the spread of residential high rises along heavily traveled roads like the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway all drive up demand, he said, as does the growth in buyers from outside the city.
"They're buying properties to rent and stay in, and they're just not used to the city," he said.
Damon Winter/The New York Times
Construction in downtown Flushing, Queens. Some contend that the city has been reluctant to crack down on noise offenders, especially in recent years.
Several acousticians believe the thirst for quiet is an indicator not only of increased population density, but also of how sensitive to noise, and how wealthy, the city has become.
Three decades ago, people tended to more readily accept environmental noise, said Ronald Eligator, a principal at Acoustic Dimensions, an acoustic consulting firm. Nowadays, he said, people want to wield control over what comes into their personal space. "People's sensitivities are greater," he said. "There are more people with the ability to control their environment, and they're trying to do so."
Madonna discovered this a few years ago when one of her neighbors on Central Park West sued her for blasting music. Neighborhood gentrification has also created strife; longtime residents of Bushwick, in Brooklyn, are vexed by the loud nighttime noise ushered in by the rapid influx of bars. Meanwhile, higher-paying newcomers in nearby East Williamsburg have complained about the loud music that had long been part of the neighborhood fabric.
The City of New York, for its part, has an updated noise code that has won widespread accolades and awards and curbed many noise creators, among them night clubs and construction sites. Still, there is no shortage of residents who are plagued by unduly loud sources of sound.
Unhinged by Repairs
Mr. Gautier, in Brooklyn Heights, was jolted from his sleep one night by what sounded like a giant drill just outside. Peering down from his window, he saw yellow-topped construction workers assiduously jackhammering more than 20 stories below. He glanced at the clock. It was 11 p.m. Surely, he thought, the construction activity would end soon. But it did not. It went on until 5 a.m., and all through the next day, and the next night. And although there have been lulls, the racket continues still.
Damon Winter/The New York Times
Roberto Gautier learned that the nightly jackhammering below his apartment was likely to continue until 2014.
After calling 311 to complain, Mr. Gautier learned that the nightly construction was likely to continue until 2014. All the permits were in place, he was told. The Transportation Department was overseeing the repairs, and there was nothing that could be done.
"It was like getting a note saying you'll be executed at dawn," Mr. Gautier said.
In New York City, special permits to work outside regular construction hours (7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays) are granted to lessen the work's impact on traffic, ease congestion and hasten completion. This is especially true with municipal projects, said Ted Timbers, a spokesman for the city's Department of Environmental Protection, which administers the noise code. He said a contractor's noise mitigation plan, required for all construction sites, was especially closely monitored during after-hours work.
Decibel readings were being taken for the Brooklyn Bridge site, he said, with city workers meeting regularly to monitor noise mitigation measures. A working group made up of local residents and the staff members of city officials was recently formed to smooth tensions, but the nighttime construction is scheduled to continue.
Noting that the repairs had to be performed, city officials said the noise code had made New York a quieter place. "Rebuilding critical infrastructure, including the Brooklyn Bridge, is essential to the future of New York City," Mr. Timbers said, "and through enforcement of the noise code we have seen overnight noise complaints drop by 23 percent over the last five years." But as is often the case when it comes to noise and the city, the official version of what constituted a troublesome racket did not always jibe with the experiences of residents.
Noise readings taken from Mr. Gautier's open window using a dosimeter, which measures noise exposure, showed average decibel levels in the high 70s between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., with volume frequently spiking in the mid-80s, as loud as a shrieking subway. Of course it is much lower with the window closed, but it is still high.
A representative from the Department of Environmental Protection said noise levels generated by the bridge project, measured in another apartment one night, fell within the parameters of the noise code, which says that after-hours work should not increase ambient volumes more than 8 decibels with the window closed. The agency said the ambient level was 48 decibels, which rose to 54 decibels when the construction started.
The World Health Organization recommends average nighttime noise levels of no more than 40 decibels to guard communities against ill health effects. Volumes topping 55 decibels can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, the agency said.
Some cities employ stricter limits than New York. During Boston's Big Dig project, nighttime construction levels were not allowed to exceed three decibels above ambient levels at homes and hotels at night, with the windows open.
Arline Bronzaft, an environmental psychologist who helped draft the city's noise code, said that though the city's code was lauded as one of the country's most progressive, there were too many lapses where developers and agencies did not adequately assess noise impact, or seek the best available remedies.
In the case of the Brooklyn Bridge repairs, she believes that measures like using quieter backup alarms and the best available sound-baffling equipment were simply not sought. "NYC takes special pride in its construction section," she wrote in an e-mail. "If this rehab project has caused such stress for the people, then how good is the construction section?"
The city, Dr. Bronzaft concluded, "gives its own agency a pass."
Damon Winter/The New York Times
Arline Bronzaft said there were many lapses where developers and agencies did not adequately assess noise impact.
Alan Gerson, a former city councilman who promoted noise abatement heavily during his terms, said the travails of Mr. Gautier and his neighbors were indicative of a glaring weakness in the noise code. He said that he pushed for the city to set maximum decibel limits for construction sites while it was revamping the noise code, but that the provision was taken off the table during negotiations between the construction industry and the city.
"It's subject to a lot of influence," Mr. Gerson said of New York's noise code. "A lot of people have an interest in minimizing restrictions placed on construction. And there's a lot of people in construction who are politically influential.
"Sometimes," he added, "The City of New York itself is an offender."
Turning a Blind Eye
Sometimes noise is simply endured, or ignored.
Not too long ago, a phalanx of Harley Davidson riders thundered into Red Hook, Brooklyn. They were there for a charity event, perched proudly astride their customized motorcycles, which were replete with roaring exhaust pipes.
"I would not ride a bike that did not make a lot of noise," said Sal Amato, 54, raising his voice over a sea of roars. "It's a death trap."
Mr. Amato said he owned seven motorcycles, all of them outfitted with customized pipes designed to be more powerful, and also louder, than what federal law permits. Echoing a commonly held biker sentiment, he believes that factory-issued pipes, muffled by a decree of the Environmental Protection Agency, choke performance and are so quiet that car and truck drivers will not hear them.
John Gallagher, 57, a biker who lives in Long Beach, N.Y., said that while he was tired of "real, real loud" he installed new pipes after "almost getting run over by a soccer mom."
Others simply change their pipes because they crave loud for loud's sake. In Harlem and elsewhere, dirt bikes have become a summertime scourge, with large packs of bikers clogging avenues, popping wheelies at crowded intersections and taunting the police, to the bitter consternation of residents there.
Damon Winter/The New York Times
A motorcycle with loud exhaust pipes crosses the Brooklyn Bridge, passing residential buildings in Dumbo.
"It is a classic, male, testosterone-level kind of thing," said John Hurley, a motorcycle activist and columnist who goes by the name Rogue. "Much like a rooster walking around, hoping the hens will look at them."
New York City once sought to curb the noise, mirroring efforts by many communities nationwide. A few years ago, several City Council members proposed to ticket bikes that lacked tags indicating they met noise requirements set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The plan was shelved after motorcyclists protested that the enforcement would be uneven and unfair; many legal pipes, the bikers said, lack such markings.
The city's noise code now stipulates that a bike is illegally loud if it is plainly audible at 200 feet away on streets where the speed limit is 35 miles per hour or less. But enforcement requires resources and willingness, and few police officers want to risk chasing motorcyclists through city streets, according to Peter F. Vallone Jr., the councilman who proposed, but did not reintroduce, the bill to ticket illegal pipes.
Bikers interviewed throughout the city said they had never been stopped for loud exhaust pipes.
"They let off the Harleys," said Peter Baldwin, of Sheepshead Bay, who added that even if he was ticketed, it would be worth it. "You can give me all the tickets you want," he said, "just don't peel me off the floor."
The Torture of Transport
Queens as a whole is pounded by the din created by two airports, but for people living in parts of Middle Village, Maspeth and Glendale, the bigger annoyance is the train.
In recent years, as New York has increasingly exported its waste by rail instead of in trucks, life has become unbearable for residents alongside the Fresh Pond rail yard, where trains are assembled and disassembled, wheels shrieking and cars crashing all night.
Some have fled the neighborhood. A coalition of Queens civic associations has pushed to replace old locomotives with quieter, less polluting ones. A local assemblyman, Andrew Hevesi, secured $3 million to overhaul one or two of the old locomotives, but overhauling them all could cost 5 to 10 times as much.
Mary Parisen, who heads the coalition, expects the problem to worsen as rail traffic and the quantity of waste freighted out of the region grows. "We produce so much waste," she said, "and it's going to be moved by rail."
Damon Winter/The New York Times
Mary Parisen said life alongside the Fresh Pond rail yard in Glendale, Queens has become unbearable.
Much farther east, residents are facing what has become an annual nightmare: the summertime onslaught of helicopters, ferrying the very rich.
Roaring above houses and skimming treetops, helicopters arriving at and leaving East Hampton Airport buzz-saw through the idyllic tranquillity cherished by residents there. "It's unconscionable; it's torturous," said Kathleen Cunningham, who lives in East Hampton and heads the Quiet Skies Coalition there, of the helicopter noise endured by some communities on Long Island's East End.
Especially galling, Mrs. Cunningham and other antinoise advocates say, is the fact that while helicopters are used by a tiny sliver of those who journey to the Hamptons — a one-way ride costs thousands of dollars — they cause disproportionate widespread misery. "It's how really, really rich people travel," Mrs. Cunningham said. "That's O.K., but they need to be better neighbors."
Rising and falling in tandem with the fortunes of Wall Street, the number of flights between Manhattan and the Hamptons peaked in 2007, and remain about 15 percent off that number, according to Jeff Smith, president of the Eastern Regional Helicopter Council.
But complaints about the noise they generate have remained, prompting officials to publicly wrangle about what to do, sometimes to little avail.
For many years, the tracks of the Long Island Rail Road, and then the ribbon of the Long Island Expressway, served as a flight route, to the deep consternation of the people living below.
In response, Senator Charles E. Schumer asked the helicopter council to have pilots instead fly north, out over the Long Island Sound, largely sparing towns near the railway tracks, like Floral Park, where Ms. Reekie, the stroke victim, lives.
But the helicopter council said noise complaints increased nearly fourfold, most of them coming from residents along the North Shore. Instead the council had helicopters vary their routes so as not to afflict the same communities, which they said caused complaints to fall by more than half. But Mr. Schumer's office said the helicopters had not been adhering to the new North Shore route in the interest of saving time and gas, a claim that the helicopter pilots dispute.
Last summer, the Federal Aviation Administration signed into law a rule that makes it mandatory for helicopters flying over the northern part of Long Island to fly the North Shore route, heading out over the water after they hit Oyster Bay. Mr. Smith said the complaints again rose, though Mr. Schumer's office disagrees.
"The helicopters make noise," Mr. Smith said. "If we move the line, there's a new neighborhood affected."
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