Judge brings the noise back

 

QNS

A Queens Supreme Court judge officially dismissed one of several lawsuits brought against the operators of Forest Hills Stadium on Wednesday in a win for concertgoers.

At the end of 2023, Concerned Citizens of Forest Hills Inc. et al. vs. The West Side Tennis Club, which leases out the stadium, was filed in the Queens Supreme Court. Less than a year later, the judge found that the plaintiffs “failed to indicate that the harm is isolated to only them” and not the wider community. 

Three named plaintiffs outlined significant and “unbearably loud” noise that travels from the stadium on concert nights into their homes on behalf of hundreds of residents. They say that for the last decade, they have struggled to relax at home due to the noise that exceeds the city’s noise code and continues past the 10 p.m. curfew. 

Some residents supported the lawsuit’s call to cease concerts at the historic stadium in hopes of bringing back quiet to the residential neighborhood. However, in recent weeks, over 25,000 people signed a Change.org petition in support of the stadium and its benefits to the community.

In their request for the community’s support, organizers of the stadium called the lawsuit “frivolous” and defended themselves as good neighbors to local residents. The group responsible for bringing some of the top acts in music to Queens in the warmer months was glad to hear that the judge dismissed the suit.

“The entire Forest Hills Stadium team is delighted and grateful to the court for today’s decision. We are also heartened by the outpouring of love from the Forest Hills community, our neighbors and the more than 25,000 people who have signed a petition to support the Stadium,” read a statement from Akiva Shapiro of Gibson Dunn, a law firm retained by the West Side Tennis Club.

Wildin' Islanders

 

CBS New York 

  People living near the new UBS Arena in Nassau County say parking mayhem is driving them crazy.

They say fans going to Islanders games and concerts are taking their cars to the neighborhood streets of Elmont, CBS2’s Jennifer McLogan reported Tuesday.

UBS Arena opened amid much fanfare, yet locals say they have been saddled with something they didn’t expect.

“I cannot even get over the sidewalk, over the lawn, to get in because I’m completely boxed in with cars,” homeowner Patricia Romeo said.

Romeo said she has been trying to go to home from the hospital, where she’s a nursing supervisor. She shared videos she has taken of game night or concert night. She claims on Elmont streets there has been chaos and pandemonium, and out-of-control drivers.

She said people have been parking anywhere they want, urinating and cursing.

“They didn’t build a system,” homeowner Sheikh Islam said.

Islam and his family live across from the new arena.

“It’s the 21st century. They can have an app. They know how many people are coming, and they didn’t open the parking lot. They are just like, ‘Oh, I want to make my money,'” Islam said.

Noise annoys nuns, plans exodus from Brooklyn

  

The Tablet

A small community of Carmelite nuns living in a monastery on the Brooklyn-Queens border has cloistered themselves from the rest of the world, but not to escape it.

Rather, their mission is to quietly pray for the world, and the Church in particular, with special attention to the salvation of souls and the sanctification of priests. This work continues unfettered by the distractions of current events, pop culture, or the media.

As a result, the Monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St. Joseph on Highland Boulevard in Brooklyn is permeated with serenity.

That is, except on the weekends when next-door Highland Park undergoes a conversion from popular greenspace to a nighttime magnet for teenagers and young adults who come to party. Criminal activity ensues — including drinking and fighting — and music blasted from dueling car speakers rattles the monastery’s windows.

High cement walls shield the sisters from hooliganism, but the noise disrupts their prayers. Consequently, the Carmelites plan to relocate to a 13-acre plot near Scranton, Pennsylvania, that has been gifted to them. Although the actual move might take years to complete, the nuns are already sad to leave their current neighborhood and the Diocese of Brooklyn.

“We’ve been here since 2004,” said Sister Maria, who speaks for the community, in a recent telephone interview. 

“And everyone in the neighborhood has been wonderful. And one thing is for sure — how we loved this diocese and the people,” she added. “But this [noise] problem has escalated over the past year. The police are also still trying as much as they can, but once they go, they come right back. It’s crazy.”

Since the nuns are cloistered, they only venture outside the monastery for essential tasks such as medical appointments, explained Jim Krug, who helps the sisters as a member of a lay group, the Carmelite Oblate Confraternity.

His regular job is teaching theology and religion at Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale, New York.

Krug reiterated that the nuns have minimal contact with the outside world. Occasionally, he said, they receive guests — such as relatives or even Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio — in a special parlor with a metal grate separating them from the visitors.

Therefore, the sisters asked Krug to conduct a tour — inside and out — of the monastery. He pointed to graffiti and garbage on the sidewalk along Highland Boulevard, just outside the monastery’s walls. The discarded junk included an empty liquor bottle, fast-food wrappers, and a busted vaping pen.

The north wall of the monastery’s enclosure faces the park. Trails cut through the thick foliage and trees surrounding the walls. Numerous tissues clinging to the ground indicate people use the secluded spot as a public restroom.

But the exterior has also been the venue of another activity — Santería rituals including sacrifices of animals, usually chickens, Krug said. In addition, animal bones, makeshift altars, and statues have been left outside the walls, Krug said.

Next stop Palitzville

Aerial Palitz, Noisemonger

 

NY Post 

The City That Never Sleeps could soon live up to its nickname.

New York’s nightlife czar is pushing to create 24-hour “entertainment districts,” where it would be OK for booze to flow, bass to thump and bodies to sway around the clock.

Despite the city already partying like it’s 1999.

“Everything is on the table right now,” said Ariel Palitz, who runs the city’s Office of Nightlife.

“We do know that 24-hour usage is very successful in other parts of the world. People say it might be terrible for quality of life, but in fact we found the opposite.”

Her recommendation is buried on page 136 of a 160-page report issued this month by Palitz’s taxpayer-funded agency, a division of the Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment.

The report claims that “uniform closing hours” for bars and clubs “can lead to increased tensions when groups of people simultaneously exit venues into public streets and sidewalks.

“Allowing 24-hour use in specified districts, if implemented properly, can help people to move at their own pace and reduce conflicts.”

 But the proposal comes as crime in New York is surging, quality-of-life violations have escalated and city leaders have failed to stem raging after-hours parties — with hot spots that include Washington Square Park and Hell Square in the Lower East Side.

Adding 24-hour entertainment can only make matters worse, cautioned Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a think tank focused on urban policy.

“We need to retain New York City’s fragile residential population right now more than we need a few thousand more drunk people in the streets,” she told The Post.

“The city is already having trouble policing disorder. Now think about the unique challenges of trying to police a place where people go to behave in a way they wouldn’t behave at home. You have to wonder if New York City is up to the challenge.”

The Washington Square Park autonomous zone

Impunity City  

 Washington Square Park, a green space of historic societal and cultural events and a pleasant environment to sit in solitude or socialize. A place where the likes of Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsburg hung out on the regular, nurturing the scenes of the nascent folk phenomenon and the beat poet movement that would change and influence music and literature forever. WSP would continue for decades to be a destination for all kinds of progressive demonstrations and protests, a place to play an intense game of chess and a convenient place to score a bag of weed, which continues to this very day.

 

 But with the pandemic seemingly fading into the past after a year of collective seclusion and restrictive guidelines, a new history in a very short amount of time has unfolded and it’s one of upheaval and civil unrest and societal decay, with hard drug abuse being consumed in broad daylight and DJ ragers late at night even after the parks closing time.

 

 

 

 

Please turn your Brooklyn down, we're tryin' to sleep ova heah

Okay, 5 hours ago was pretty early in the morning. Don't you folks sleep? Oh, sorry, you couldn't because of these assholes. In all seriousness, this isn't just a Brooklyn thing, it's happening ALL OVER the damn city and Queens is getting more than its fair share.

Why is absolutely nothing done about this? The progressives want cars banned yet have nothing to say about this wackadoo culture, which affects not "pedestrians," "cyclists" or "drivers" but people trying to sleep in their own beds?

Hunters Point residents hopes the NYPD stops the noise this year

 

LIC Post

 This year it will be different.

That was the message from officials at a virtual public meeting Wednesday who plan to make sure that there isn’t a repeat of the unruly activity that took place along the Long Island City waterfront last summer.

The meeting, which was organized by the non-profit Hunters Point Parks Conservancy, brought together elected officials, city and state park representatives as well as local law enforcement.

Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer and State Senator Michael Gianaris spoke at the meeting, along with representatives for U.S. Congress Member Carolyn Maloney and Assembly Member Cathy Nolan.

Around 150 residents were on a Zoom call that lasted nearly two hours.

“What happened last year… was wholly unacceptable,” Gianaris said, referring to the late-night booze parties, illegal fireworks and dangerous drag racing that took place in the area.

“This is a neighborhood with a lot of families, a lot of young children and the kind of activity that was going on… cannot be allowed to happen again,” Gianaris said.

A record number of parkgoers visited the waterfront parks last year, according to the HPPC, with many discarding litter—leading to piles of trash. Food vendors also stayed open late to serve large crowds.

Police Officer Andrew Diaz, who represented the NYPD 108th Precinct at the meeting, said that the entire force was overstretched last summer – given the outbreak of COVID-19 and civil unrest across the city. He assured residents that there would be more boots on the ground to tackle any problems like those that surfaced last year.

“Last year was a perfect storm with the pandemic and protests – we didn’t have enough police officers to address these issues and we apologize,” Diaz said. “But this year will be different.”

He said that Capt. Lavonda Wise, the NYPD 108th Precinct’s new commanding officer, has made Center Boulevard a policing priority.

Diaz said that the precinct is also changing the work hours of its officers—to ensure that more cops will be available on weekends.

He said there will be a greater “uniform presence” with a lot of NYPD auxiliary officers also on patrol this summer.

Did Gianaris, Jimmy V and any of these tower people ever consider that these violators could be their tower neighbors? 

Open streets and restaurants has led to blowback blight

This is going to be a real change for anyone living on Cornelia Street, especially if these dining sheds permanent after the pandemic. There are 10 of them on this one tiny narrow block. Only a few are open right now, but the other ones are getting ready. ⁦⁦@ebottcher⁩ pic.twitter.com/NdIfVplBp8

— CentralVillageBA (@CVBA10014) March 12, 2021

 

Medium

Remake New York is the new buzzword for pundits and politicians. It envisions the post-pandemic city as a blank slate on which to try out cool new ideas. There’s nothing wrong with cool ideas but actual policy requires more than slogans and press releases. It requires planning. It requires expertise. It requires debate and public input.

Permanent outdoor dining is warning for what can go wrong when you remake New York on the fly. Beginning as a temporary measure designed to help restaurants survive the lockdown, the public took to outdoor dining right away. After a grim spring, when moving vans were more common than taxis, people loved the sight of the funky shacks, festooned with fake flowers and painted in gaudy colors, that were bringing life back to the streets.

Elected officials love popular programs, especially if the official has worn out his welcome. Mayor de Blasio jumped all over outdoor dining, declaring that it must “be part of city life for years to come.” Just a few weeks later his wish became an actual law mandating “the establishment of a permanent outdoor dining program” by October 1, 2021. In the blink of an eye, and with no debate, the city tossed out long-established policy, ignored long-established zoning restrictions and gave away public land — sidewalks and roadways—to private businesses.

Local Law 114 is a textbook example of how not to make policy. At a single hastily convened hearing, members of the City Council tossed softballs to representatives of the restaurant industry and Business Improvement Districts. Representatives of the neighborhoods impacted by the new law were nowhere to be found. The official voice of these neighborhoods, Community Boards, didn’t learn what was in the bill until after it had passed.

The one saving grace of this whole misbegotten process was that the city had an entire year before the permanent program took effect. One would think that the Mayor and City Council would have used that time for due diligence on a program they’d cobbled together so quickly. Instead, elected officials took the three-monkeys approach: neither seeing, hearing and certainly not speaking of the problems that came with outdoor dining.

Sunnyside Drag City

 

LIC Post

Revved up engines, screeching tires and the din of loud music booming out of car windows are among the sounds that are waking up residents throughout Sunnyside late at night.

The noise stems from drag racers who have been tearing up and down the streets and avenues of Sunnyside late at night—often on their way to empty parking lots on 48th Street by Northern Boulevard to burn rubber with hundreds of onlookers.

“It’s been happening every weekend, and two or three random nights during the week,” said Monica Hall, a born and bred Sunnysider who lives on 49th Street by 39th Avenue. “It’s so loud my dogs hide behind the furniture.”

The complaints about drag racing have been piling up in the past two months, with the trouble spots including 39th Avenue, Skillman Avenue, 43rd Avenue as well as 43rd and 48th Streets.

There have been 32 complaints about drag racing in the 11101 and 11104 ZIP codes from Sept.1 through Oct. 5, according to 311 data analyzed by the Queens Post.  For the same period last year, there were just two for those zip codes.

The data also shows that 25 of 32 complaints concern incidents in Sunnyside Gardens and in the Long Island City area near the Home Depot parking by Northern Boulevard, a popular venue for drag racers.

Antoin O’Duibhir, who lives on 39th Avenue by 48th Street, said that the noise has become too much. He says that many of the drag racers tear up local streets with their souped-up cars and then go down to the Home Depot parking lot.

“It’s been going on for weeks,” O’Duibhir said. “It’s like shotguns going off out the back of them. You hear these big pops going off.”

O’Duibhir, fed up by what’s been going on, did some investigative work and checked out what was happening at the Home Depot parking lot on Saturday night.

“I went down there at midnight and there were crowds and crowds of people,” he said. “I would say 500 people and lots of cars too.”

He said that he was stunned by the number of attendees and how organized it was. He said there was even drone capturing footage of the event.

“They have nice cars, souped-up Mercedes and BMWs,” he said. “All have nice wheels, mufflers and dark windows.”

The cars take turns ripping donuts, he said. In one instance, which he recorded, the driver was doing a spin while a passenger was hanging out the car window trying to get the crowd to cheer him on.

“It’s dangerous,” he said, adding that someone will get killed. He said the vehicles spin so close to the spectators.

 

 

 

 

Woman lucks into an "affordable" apartment next to catering hall parking lot and cacophony ensues

Brick Underground

When Laura moved to an Astoria two bedroom with a roommate, she couldn’t believe her luck—at first. It’s affordable for her, in a great location, and has huge closets. But as with most things that seem too good to be true, it is. Her apartment looks out over the parking lot of Astoria World Manor—and it turns out that living next to an event space is anything but a celebration for Laura. Here’s her tale. 

I'm originally from Central New Jersey, but I've been in New York City since 2008. A few years ago, I was living in an apartment in Astoria near Broadway and Crescent and needed to move. My friend was looking for a share that was more affordable. We joined forces, but our apartment search was daunting. We saw quite a few duds. So, when we finally saw a two-bedroom apartment on Astoria Boulevard with a great layout, and best of all, huge closets, we jumped on it. 

The biggest bedroom (mine) is in the back of the building and faces the parking lot for the Astoria World Manor, an event space that looks like a place time forgot. I suspect looks the same as it did when it was built in the 1950s. When we took a tour with our real agent, he said, "Look, it's a parking lot! It'll be quiet!" Yes, I thought, parking lots are quiet. Little did I know...

It's hard to say the exact moment I realized my neighbor would be an issue, since I've been living there since 2012. But I quickly learned that folks leaving weddings, quinceañeras, and other parties fueled by alcohol are not quiet. I've listened to arguments, cries of joy, endless honking—I still have no idea why people need to honk at each other in a parking lot—and celebratory chanting. 

Sometimes the staff will hang out in the parking lot afterward, blasting music and yelling. I'm not sure what it is about that particular parking lot that makes people forget that they are surrounded by residential buildings. 

The worst noise, though, is the catering hall’s snowplow. For some reason it comes out at 2 or 3 a.m. when it snows and the grinding sound on the pavement is excruciating. I've left phone messages documenting the sounds, begging to have the plow wait until at least 6 a.m. I’ve even tried calling 311, to no avail.

In addition to all that noise, the place just seems to attract drama. One of the strangest things I've witnessed actually has nothing to do with the parking lot. My friend texted me asking if I was ok because she said a car had crashed into the World Manor! I ran downstairs to see and it was really a sight. I assume the car was trying to make a U-turn that turned into a K-turn and forgot to put the car in reverse. 

In general, I don't mind the noise that much, especially on Fridays and Saturdays. It’s the parties on Sundays and weekdays that stretch until 2 a.m. that really get my goat. I listen to podcasts or meditation apps to help me fall asleep in general. Once asleep, I can usually get used to or block out noise, as long as it doesn’t last that long. However, the snowplow will usually wake me out of a sound sleep and keep me awake until the workers are done plowing. (Fortunately, we haven’t really seen snow this winter.) While I haven’t missed work because of the late-night noise, I have gone to work exhausted many times.

Evening construction noise too much for Google guy

 

PIX News

Screeching metal.

Walls crumbling.

That isn’t exactly the most soothing way to go to sleep; after hours construction noise – particularly in Manhattan.

This news segment actually plays like an ad for Google in the beginning. Too bad there is no skip ad option like on youtube.

Night construction has being going on for decades here so now it gets attention because a trillion dollar tech corporation is mad about it. I wonder how and what times their "campus" in west Soho (now called "Hudson Square") is going to get built?

Idling construction vehicles in the middle of the night in Flushing

Mr. Patel,

Senator Liu's Facebook staff told me to reach out to you regarding idling construction vehicles at 36-23 172 St. Friday, August 9 it began at 5:00 AM and went on for the rest of the day. Today, Monday, August 12 it began at 2:00 AM and has continued since.

At 2:00 this morning 2 dump trucks parked on 172 Street between 39 Ave and Crocheron Ave and idled on and off until 7:00 AM when construction began at the above address. At one point one of the trucks idled for over 60 minutes. 

Attached are video and the license plate of the vehicle that was idling for 60 minutes.

Reports have been filed with 311 for idling vehicle noise and odor from idling vehicle, but these reports do no good when an inspector comes and the problem isn't occurring at that time.

 

 Mr. Patel,

I happened to run into the inspector from the DEP yesterday, and he assisted me with filing idling complaints for these vehicles. 

A Citizens Complaint has been filed for the incident on the morning of 8/12/19, report 2019-4534. As this happened again this morning, reports 2019-4540 and 2019-4534 have also been filed. While the above reports take care of the idling violation, these trucks also block private driveways and park in fire hydrants in addition to being noisy in the middle of the night.

 Mr. Patel,

Unsurprisingly, you never followed up on this complaint. Trucks continue to arrive to this site at all hours of the night: 12:30 AM, 2:00 AM, 4:00 AM. And now I find myself absolutely unable to enjoy my weekend because someone approved a Saturday work permit (permit 421679142). Trucks have been racing up and down 172 Street since 5:30 this morning, beeping, honking horns constantly, grinding their gears. Calls to 311 do nothing because they come days after the problem is gone, only for it to return again during the night.

This is not Manhattan. This is a quiet, residential street in Flushing; there is absolutely no need for approval of a Saturday work permit. None. Stop destroying neighborhoods and communities and do something about this.

Patel is State Senator John Liu's deputy chief of staff.

Infernal amplified chanting heard for blocks by Barclays Arena

No need to worry, Saudi Arabia is our "ally" and are a great and reliant customer of our beautiful weapons. And Al Qaeda wound up being very useful too as proxies in Syria and Yemen. I think our derelict mayor and quixotic presidential candidate would call this vibrancy in action.

Revelers bring the noise at Willets Point and Forest Park parking lots

 

Queens Chronicle

 
Ed Sniadecki tried earplugs. He even bought a white noise machine.
Nothing has given him and his wife relief from the extremely loud music at night, though.

“It’s a pounding bass,” the Whitestone resident told the Chronicle last Thursday. “It resonates throughout the entire neighborhood.”

He and others say the problem ramps up in spring and summer. And according to Sniadecki, “It’s no longer a weekend thing.”

Affected residents say the main culprit is the music-blasting cars with big sound systems parked late at night in Willets Point and the World’s Fair Marina parking lot. And police responding to noise complaints have proved them right.

“Bump, bump, bump, bump,” said Dan Lamarca of Whitestone, imitating the bass sound from the cars. When he first heard it, back in 2013, he thought kids were banging on the door to his house.
It is relentless. Even at Easter dinner last month, the obnoxious noise blared in the background at Lamarca’s house.

“We’re considering selling our house and moving out,” he said.
Lamarca isn’t the only one, according to We Love Whitestone Civic Association President Alfredo Centola.

“People are literally moving out of their neighborhood because they can’t take the music anymore,” the civic leader said.

In June 2016, a South Richmond Hill man was arrested for blasting music late at night in Willets Point from a van. The vehicle — which had more than 50 speakers — was confiscated.

Queens Chronicle


Councilman Bob Holden (D-Middle Village) said he can hear people blaring music from the Forest Park Bandshell from his house.

To clarify, Holden lives in Middle Village north, two blocks away from the Long Island Expressway. In fact, when he first heard the music on a night about a month ago, he thought it was coming from Juniper Valley Park.

“It’s one thing to play music but it’s another thing to get stadium speakers and blast it where you can hear it for miles,” he told the Chronicle on Monday.

Holden posted on Facebook on April 23 that the 102nd Precinct was in the bandshell parking lot and would remain throughout the night.

One commenter posted, “This is our way of staying out of trouble .. we are in a open park not disturbing anyone in a parking lot .. yes i agree we leave a mess but add trash cans and it will be cleaner!! We aren’t there fighting killing shooting we just there playing music staying out of trouble!!...”

Holden told the Chronicle he didn’t agree with the post.

“Weren’t disturbing anyone? That’s ridiculous,” he said. “You’re disturbing people for miles away. That’s how bad it was. If they weren’t disturbing anyone, this wouldn’t be an issue. And the fact that these are grown men who said we’re staying out of trouble, what does that mean? Let us break the law and let us disturb the peace because we’re staying out of trouble. These guys have to grow up.”
Holden added, “These guys are not angels like they say on their Facebook posts. ‘Oh, we just want to hang out and have fun.’ Yeah, you want to have fun at other people’s expense and make a racket.”
He is working with the 102nd and 104th precincts to solve the problem.

“You can get a parking ticket within two minutes of your meter expiring, but the people who are actually creating a nuisance to the neighborhoods aren’t getting fined,” Holden said in a statement. “The NYPD needs to crack down on these complaints or else the disturbances will never stop.”

Plane noise is killing us

From PIX11:

For years, the Federal Aviation Administration gave tennis fans first-class treatment.

During the U.S. Open, the FAA diverted planes from nearby LaGuardia Airport, away from Arthur Ashe Stadium during the tournament. But in 2012, the tennis climb, as the flight path is known, stuck.

The decision permanently sent airplanes over the densely populated areas of northern Queens during takeoff.

"It's pretty loud, sometimes you think it's just a few meters above your roof," said Daniel Vasquez, who lives in Bayside.

Vasquez said he's constantly woken up by the rumbling of planes flying overhead. Now, according to a new study out of Columbia University, it turns out that turbulence may be causing more damage than anyone realized.

"I think the most damaging and shocking is the fact that given the noise impact, the air pollution impact, the noise from the planes, you could lose one year off your life," Sen. Tony Avella said.

Avella represents the impacted neighborhoods and said the FAA committed a classic double fault when it made the switch permanent. Not only was there no environmental impact study, but he said, the FAA didn't even bother to let the community know about the switch.

Bars almost always get away with being loud

From NBC:

New Yorkers fed up with noisy nightlife have the odds stacked against them when filing complaints about loud bars and clubs. The I Teams Chris Glorioso reports.



(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Problem Whitestone lot padlocked

From the Queens Tribune:

The city’s Department of Buildings (DOB) has padlocked a residential lot on 24th Avenue between 149th Street and 150th Street in Whitestone that was being illegally used for commercial storage.

State Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) had been petitioning multiple city agencies for nearly three years to have the lot closed. The site had been an area of concern for neighbors, who complained about a multitude of hazards emanating from the tract of land.

“I was very happy to learn that this nuisance was finally padlocked after years of requests from myself and neighbors who wanted to see something done,” Avella said. “Padlocking certainly does not completely eliminate the problems created by the illegal commercial use of the lot, but this will certainly protect the community from a number of hazardous conditions created by the illegal storage.”

The lot is owned by Whitestone contractor Salvatore Valenza and was being used to store trucks, construction equipment and debris, despite being located in a residential zone and situated directly between two residential properties.

Nearby residents complained about the loud, early-morning growls of truck engines and the unsanitary conditions of the lot’s strewn construction debris.

Civic leader says historic districts should be protected from noise

From the Times Ledger:

The LaGuardia Airport committee meeting at the Adria Hotel in Bayside on Jan. 25 brought one civic leader’s report that the Federal Aviation Administration may have overlooked rules pertaining to historic districts when creating flight patterns over northeast Queens.

Maria Becce, retired vice president of the Broadway-Flushing Homeowners Association and current member, said she had corresponded with officials in Washington about a 1966 law protecting historic places and Native American reservations from environmental impacts of airplane noise.

The Broadway-Flushing Historic District, established in 2006, protects the integrity of about 1,300 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places that have stood for more than a century. The neighborhood now sits below the NextGen flight pattern, enacted in 2012, particularly the TNNIS climb for commercial aircraft departing from LaGuardia.

According to a letter issued in November from the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, part of the Office of Federal Agency Programs, to Katherine Andrus, the FAA’s federal preservation officer, stating the agency had issued a categorical exclusion, or CATEX, under the Historic Preservation Act which the FAA seemed to falsely believe gave it immunity from complying with Section 106, which calls for additional studies pertaining to historic districts, the letter stated.

Construction noise reduction bill introduced

From the Daily News:

Construction done at odd hours will have to turn down the volume under a bill passed by the City Council on Tuesday.

The legislation sponsored by Councilman Ben Kallos places stricter limits on construction within 200 feet of a home before 7 a.m. and after 6 p.m. on weekdays, and any time on weekends.

The construction cacophony will be capped at 80 decibels next year, and dropped to 75 in 2020. The current limit is 85 decibels.

The city would also be given the power to shut down pieces of construction equipment that are too loud.

It will also make it easier to do noise complaint inspections because they won’t have to be inside the home of the person who complained.

Construction noise complaints on the rise

From NY1:

Developers are apparently giving New Yorkers headaches, according to a rise in noise complaints filed with the city.

A report from the state comptroller says the number of complaints logged with 311 more than doubled since 2010.

For example, at the Chapin School on the Upper East Side, residents have called and complained more than 100 times about the ongoing construction.

Many of the complaints come before or after normal construction work hours, which are between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Special permits from the buildings department allows work after hours, but the comptroller says those permits are not being given out responsibly.