Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Noise

Is Sidewalk Dining to Blame for Dyckman Street’s Traffic Nightmare?

By Brad Aaron | Jun 10, 2010 | 30 Comments

Mamajuana Cafe. Photo: The Streets Where We Live Last week I took my first cab ride in recent memory, from Midtown home to Inwood. It was Thursday night, and pretty early — around 10:00 — when we exited the West Side Highway onto Riverside Drive and made the left to Dyckman/200th Street. As we passed […]

NYPD Amps Up Street Noise With the “Rumbler”

By Brad Aaron | Oct 26, 2009 | 17 Comments

As if constant engine noise, gratuitous horn honking, booming stereos and screeching car alarms weren’t enough of a collective imposition on millions of New Yorkers, NYPD is about to escalate the street-level aural arms race with the "Rumbler," a souped-up siren designed primarily to pierce the cocoon of obliviousness enshrouding city motorists. Expected to be […]

Council Targets Roaming Tour Buses, Old School Buses

By Brad Aaron | Sep 17, 2009 | 1 Comment

Photo: artgyrl/Flickr The City Council will hold hearings on new rules for tour bus operators next Monday. Int. 742 would have companies switch from open-air amplification of tour guides to headphone-based systems in buses with unenclosed upper decks or open windows. Int. 836 would require submission of operating plans, including routes, trip times and frequency, […]

Study Provides a New Vision for Allen and Pike Street Malls

By Sarah Goodyear | Sep 19, 2008 | 7 Comments

Local residents turned out to give their opinions on the renovation of the malls early last summer. Residents of the Lower East Side and Chinatown have been fighting for improvements to the Allen and Pike Street pedestrian malls for more than a decade. Now, with the city’s Parks Department set to begin a $5.4 million […]

Saturday Evening in Jackson Heights, Queens: Feel the Pain

By Clarence Eckerson Jr. | Aug 3, 2007 | 47 Comments

Fed up with the dysfunction of New York City’s streets, people all around the city are picking up video cameras and making their own StreetFilms. The one above is pretty amazing. Unless you like the sound of car horns honking, make sure your volume is turned down before you press "play." This StreetFilm was produced […]