Loud Noise From Pier 15 Assaulting Heights, Again

By on May 27, 2017 7:30 pm in Environment, Health, Noise

If you’ve noticed a loud, rhythmic noise coming from the direction of the East River today, it appears to be a repeat of a problem we had last Labor Day weekend. As best I could determine, the source is the same: Pier 15 (my photo was taken this evening, and shows a large crowd there). My wife made a 311 report and spoke with someone she said was very helpful; she later got an e-mail saying police had been notified. We also left a message for State Sen. Daniel Squadron’s staff; his district includes both Brooklyn Heights and lower Manhattan.

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  • Peter Darrow

    Must have worked because the noise stopped earlier than in the past.

  • Roberto

    While mesmerized by Anish Kapoor’s whirlpool art installation near the Water Taxi pier in Brooklyn Bridge, I was startled by the brutal horn blast of the new ferry. Any semblance of peace and quiet is smashed by its piercing scream. I pity the park workers, tourists and residents of Brooklyn Bridge Park who experience this several times a day.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com/ Claude Scales

    The noise I referred to in my story,was loud, annoying, and repetitive over several hours. I can hear Staten Island Ferry horns from where I live; they are bearable. Constant, rapidly repetitive, loud noise is not.

  • B.

    Fog horns and ferry whistles are the sound of men and machines at work in a harbor.

    The constant rhythmic blast of sound systems carrying across said harbor (or echoing through our residential streets) is the uncivilized sound of people indulging themselves at the expense of others.

    Living thirty feet above an above-ground subway line, I know the sounds of men and machines at work, often on weekends and at night, trying to make the tracks hold and keep commuters safe. I will gladly trade my jack hammers for your startling, “brutish” horn blast. But on the whole, I do not mind them: They are my tax dollars at work.

  • Roberto

    There is no contest when it comes to jackhammers. I would throw in motion alarms on vehicles that are designed to wake people. Point of agreement! Noise is unwanted sound judged to be unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing.

  • Heinrich Hertz II

    What we need is perhaps 5 or 10K watts of audio output which would, of course, not be directed in any particular direction and in no case designed or intended to disrupt or send any message whatsoever to any adjacent neighborhood at all. Then, the very next time someone calls the 1st precinct about the Heights being assaulted by constant noise. And the callers get the 1st classic hey – that’s no our job or they just checked and there’s no real problem, then with equipment like that, the Heights would have no real options in the matter. Hint: there are tons of high power audio equip available for rent….
    I really think this problem Warren an acoustic laser, but rock concert gear would do for a starter

  • Lord Montague

    I mean, ok, sure. But isn’t this just part of living in the city? Does anyone live here for the peace and quiet? Seems to me that if you can’t put up with a little noise—the noise of people enjoying themselves, mind you—once every six months, then you might find yourself more comfortable living in the suburbs. Or maybe Nova Scotia. Oh, and let me know when you’re moving—I’d love an apartment in the Heights within earshot of Manhattan ;)

  • B.

    But, I am sure you will agree, there is necessary noise (men and machines at work) and unnecessary noise: raucous shouting that passes for conversation, ramped-up car stereos that set off car alarms, sonic sound systems from party venues and basketball courts, amplified music blasting from stores.

    What is that about? Sheer self-indulgence, probably thoughtlessness, possibly aggression.

  • B.

    Oh, dear. I guess you haven’t lived for very long in Brooklyn. I remember when it was much quieter. While people living on major avenues always had buses roaring beneath their windows, and people in Windsor Terrace had above their heads airplanes flying into La Guardia, high even as they were over Prospect Park West, and others had F trains and B trains rumbling below their homes, and many of us had the Italian vegetable man and the knife-sharpener man clopping by on their horse-drawn wagons early in the morning, we did not have the sort of inconsiderate, avoidable noise that some people excuse as city-sounds.

  • Andrew Porter

    I wonder if anyone remembers when the Brooklyn Bridge had metal strips embedded in the roadway, which produced a high whine when cars went over them. When the roadway was resurfaced a couple of decades ago, BH got a lot quieter.

    Loud, thumping music wafting over the water from Manhattan is a whole other problem, though.

  • Lord Montague

    Oh dear, you are correct—I have definitely not lived in Brooklyn long enough to have experienced “the knife-sharpener men clopping by on their horse-drawn wagons.” I was born in the 20th century.

  • B.

    I do remember the Brooklyn Bridge before it was paved. What a sound. Ditto the Marine Park Bridge which as a child I called “the Noisy Bridge.”

  • B.

    It’s the Italian veggie seller who in that case must have been very old indeed, because he, his horse, and his wagon were still clomping on into the late 1950s.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    Metal studs, that were supposed to improve traction but actually made it worse. The sound was a varying moan, kind of an exaggerated doppler effect.

  • Bornhere

    For sure I remember the vegetable/marigold wagon, drawn by a pony, but the only knife sharpeners I can recall had small truck-like vehicles. At least one of them still comes through the neighborhood. (And I LOVED the sounds from the Bridge in the … good older days.)

  • B.

    Bornhere, do you remember when Ocean Parkway had trees that met in the middle and an equestrian path, and the Prospect Expressway, under construction, was an enormous muddy trench?

    Brooklyn keeps getting painted over, but underneath all those new coats is the old picture.