Helicopter Noise In Brooklyn Heights Bad Lately?

By on September 22, 2019 10:36 pm in Brooklyn Heights

Neighborhood activist Toba Potosky has noticed a marked increase in helicopter noise in Brooklyn Heights and adjoining neighborhoods. Your correspondent has noticed this in the Heights. Have you? Here’s Toba:

Is there a new JFK flight pattern that I’m not aware of? Are we under surveillance, or attack, or whatever… I honestly don’t care, I just want it to stop. Today! I am serious. Everyone living in DUMBO, Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill is under assault by the constant noise from above day and night. It’s a real problem.

Where to complain? Ten years ago I got this . Still good?

Photo: Acclaim Images; public domain.

Share this Story:
  • District 13 parent

    It’s not just Brooklyn Heights: lots of low-flying helicopters lately in Fort Greene.

  • ingrid schram

    it’s because UBER started offering flights a while ago . We’re in downtown/ fortgreene

  • MaryT

    Last night around 9pm -seeming dozens of low-flying copters trying to all land at once at downtown helipad. Noise level high enough to wake the dead.

    Most flights are now commuter, according to recent NYTimes article (Aug. 2nd).

  • Diane W

    Yes, it’s gotten worse. It’s like gnats flying around our heads.

  • Banet

    I was on Governor’s Island this weekend and the helicopters were CONSTANT. They really are a scourge and need to be stopped.

  • BrooklynHeightzer

    Would be much worse if they start dropping on our heads.

  • gc

    Noise pollution in our neighborhood is a major problem.
    A long time neighbor left last week. When I asked why she and her husband were moving her reply was the noise. It really is out of control.

  • Jorale-man

    It’s all relative as I see it. They are indeed a nuisance and should be more tightly regulated. But for sheer noise pollution, car horns are fare more constant and invasive. Especially with air-conditioner season soon coming to an end, the honking will become much more apparent at home.

  • Angela De Marco

    Possibly Hamptonites coming back from their summer idylls and that season will end shortly too.

  • Andrew Porter

    There’s some sort of shuttle going back and forth several times a day at fairly low levels over the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I think they have to fly low because the BBG is under the flight path into LaGuardia, with another plane passing overhead every 45 seconds or so.

  • meschwar

    That was probably UN general assembly related. Trump and other world leaders flying in.

  • Cranberry Beret

    There’s a definite problem with the Uber service that flies in a direct line from the Manhattan heliport over the Heights, downtown, Park Slope and beyond straight to Kennedy. If these folks want to pay $1000 to avoid the Van Wyck or the Belt, then let them fly out over the water and not over neighborhoods.

    My other beef is with the NYPD copters over the North Heights, Fulton Ferry and DUMBO. Very frequently, either when there’s an issue on the Brooklyn Bridge or just because they’re conducting a “security exercise” they swoop LOW (like 250 feet above the ground) in repeated circles over the area. The noise is truly deafening and the safety is a big problem. An outside party needs to evaluate whether these flights are truly necessary and even if so, they should be using drones instead of copters.

  • Gbsgbs

    If someone here is seriously considering advocating on this issue, look up the research from Paris that city noise lowers life expectancy by 3+ years due to higher blood pressure from stress reaction, etc. The urban planning world is slowly waking up to the need to regulate (and/or price?) noise in cities like NYC. I believe there’s a lab at NYU starting to do health research on the issue locally.

  • DIBS

    Life must be tough for so many in Brooklyn Heights because of this. Just try to stay classy.