Noise in the City
Noise in the city
Steve Curwood: Modern life is full of nasty noises, especially in the cities. Sirens can shatter serenity at any moment and jackhammers, loud music, and useless mufflers can all send us over the edge. For many people in New York City, there's one form of sonic pollution at the top of the list. They're calling for its banning, even though some nervous New Yorkers savor the sound for security reasons. And as Neal Rauch reports, even as the controversy prompts loud debate, some aren't waiting for laws to be passed.
Neal Rauch: It's late. You're tired. Finally, after an exhausting day, you're ready to surrender to the world of dreams. Your head sinks into your pillow. Then . . .
Judy Evans: After being awakened at night many times so that awful feeling, you know, you've just gotten to sleep and then the alarm goes off.
NR: Each night hundreds of people like Judy Evans, a scenic designer and artist who lives in Brooklyn, are jolted out of their sleep by the nagging wail of a car alarm.
JE: You just wait it out but you don't know if that's going to happen again. You don't know when you're going to be reawakened for a second or a third time even.
NR: Often she is, and sometimes a defective alarm will go on for hours.
JE: If one person were standing on the corner with a horn making that kind of noise, they would be arrested. They would be disturbing the peace.
Man: It slowly gets under your skin and eventually drives you nuts.
NR: A music producer and composer, this resident of Manhattan's Upper West Side got fed up with car alarms disturbing his sleep and his work. He got together with some similarly frazzled neighbors and formed a posse of sorts.
Man: We start off with a note saying, "Fix your car alarm, it's disturbed hundreds of people last night." If that doesn't help we quite often use some minor retaliatory step like breaking an egg on their windshield or on the front hood, which doesn't hurt anything but it's a little bit of a mess to
Steve Curwood: Modern life is full of nasty noises, especially in the cities. Sirens can shatter serenity at any moment and jackhammers, loud music, and useless mufflers can all send us over the edge. For many people in New York City, there's one form of sonic pollution at the top of the list. They're calling for its banning, even though some nervous New Yorkers savor the sound for security reasons. And as Neal Rauch reports, even as the controversy prompts loud debate, some aren't waiting for laws to be passed.
Neal Rauch: It's late. You're tired. Finally, after an exhausting day, you're ready to surrender to the world of dreams. Your head sinks into your pillow. Then . . .
Judy Evans: After being awakened at night many times so that awful feeling, you know, you've just gotten to sleep and then the alarm goes off.
NR: Each night hundreds of people like Judy Evans, a scenic designer and artist who lives in Brooklyn, are jolted out of their sleep by the nagging wail of a car alarm.
JE: You just wait it out but you don't know if that's going to happen again. You don't know when you're going to be reawakened for a second or a third time even.
NR: Often she is, and sometimes a defective alarm will go on for hours.
JE: If one person were standing on the corner with a horn making that kind of noise, they would be arrested. They would be disturbing the peace.
Man: It slowly gets under your skin and eventually drives you nuts.
NR: A music producer and composer, this resident of Manhattan's Upper West Side got fed up with car alarms disturbing his sleep and his work. He got together with some similarly frazzled neighbors and formed a posse of sorts.
Man: We start off with a note saying, "Fix your car alarm, it's disturbed hundreds of people last night." If that doesn't help we quite often use some minor retaliatory step like breaking an egg on their windshield or on the front hood, which doesn't hurt anything but it's a little bit of a mess to