Noise Complaints Rise With Rent in Washington Heights
An old man held up his cell phone so Ebenezer Smith, the community board district manager for Washington Heights and Inwood, could watch his video. It was a clip of the man’s living room at 2 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon.
“The music was so loud that everything that he has — the ashtrays and everything he has on his coffee table — was vibrating,” Smith said.
As district manager for over a decade, Smith increasingly hears complaints like this. Washington Heights and Inwood boast the highest rate of noise complaints of any district in the city, tied only with Central Harlem, according to a report released earlier this year by New York State Comptroller Thomas Napoli, analyzing data from 2010 to 2015.
That’s saying something. In a new study, New York City Council found that noise was the top reason for 311 calls last year.
Smith wasn’t surprised by his district’s rank. Washington Heights and Inwood, predominantly Dominican neighborhoods, have long been home to bustling nightclubs, lounge-style restaurants, and outdoor barbeques, incomplete without boom boxes blasting bachata.
“You’ll find Dominicans, we are loud,” Smith said. “…The music that people like to listen [to] — merengue, salsa — is festive music. You want to listen to it loud to enjoy it.”
According to Dr. Arline Bronzaft, an environmental psychologist consulted for the report, the data doesn’t necessarily mean these neighborhoods are the noisiest. It means a greater number of people are complaining.
“Certain people are more vocal,” she said.
Smith thinks “certain people” are largely the neighborhoods’ newest residents from pricier areas like Midtown and the Upper West Side — a part of the gentrification process.
“They come over here and they find a totally different culture, totally different atmosphere, and they start to complain and calling 311,” Smith said. “That’s why you see the numbers going up.”
Smith himself was priced out of the district he represents. He moved to the Bronx when he couldn’t afford a three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment for his family in Washington Heights. According to a January 2018 policy brief from the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, median rent expenses in Washington Heights and Inwood rose by 38.8 percent from 1999 to 2014.
Transplants “expect a rich white people neighborhood at Dominican prices without wanting Dominican neighbors,” said Isaac Freidman, a Washington Heights resident for four years. “I like my Dominican rent.” Freidman is annoyed by the noise — he’s had to ask neighbors to turn down the stereo at 4 a.m. — but he accepts “stoop culture” as a part of living in the neighborhood.
As rent climbs, restaurants and bars blast music to attract a young Dominican crowd, desperate for higher revenues, Smith said.
“I represent the community. The restaurant owner is the community. The person living above the restaurant is the community…” Smith threw up his hands. “I need to find the balance for the whole thing.”
Yeshiva University is another sector of the community to juggle. The Jewish college found its home in Washington Heights in 1928, bringing a steady stream of young Orthodox Jews to the neighborhood ever since. Yeshiva University students — and the long-standing Jewish community around them — frequently lament the loud nights and debate how to best address them.
Aryeh Tiefenbrunn, a Yeshiva University graduate, has lived in Washington Heights for a decade. He said that one weekend, a group blasted music on the sidewalk from the time he and his wife finished Shabbat dinner to when he left for synagogue at 8:30 a.m. the next morning.
“We didn’t get any sleep the whole night,” he said. The next day, he filed a noise complaint about his neighbors.
Still, the couple only files noise complaints in extreme cases. Tiefenbrunn prefers to avoid sending the New York City Police Department to neighbors’ doors.
“It’s really small-minded to think people are just being inconsiderate,” his wife Ayala Tiefenbrunn said.
“At a certain point, we have to have respect that people work hard and spend time with their families at night,” her husband added.
Bronzaft sympathizes with the neighborhood’s 311 callers. She has been researching the environmental impact of noise for 40 years and famously studied its effect on elementary school students in Inwood. She lives on 79th St. with double-glazed windows.
“Noise creates stress,” she said. “Stress breaks down the system. It’s linked to cardiovascular disorders… When people aren’t responded to they get frustrated which makes matters worse.”
But many Dominicans take pride in the local nightlife and don’t want to see their neighborhoods change. “If it gets too quiet I think there’s something wrong,” said Raymond Vargas, an Uber driver with a graying beard. He’s lived in Washington Heights since he was 12 years old.
According to Vargas, living in a vibrant city means dealing with noise, and 311 calls aren’t the way to do it.
“Knock on the guy’s door and explain to him your dilemma, put some ear plugs on, move to White Plains,” he said. “But calling the cops, that’s straight-up messed up.”
