Even the business community is beginning to realize that restrictive legislation is the result, not of anti-business bias, but of the public's dissatisfaction with abuses. Enlightened businessmen are warning their colleagues that business has a stake in preserving the city. "If we fail to improve those surroundings," cautioned Ralph Lazarus, president of Federated Department Stores, "the resulting anger and frustration will inevitably break about our heads." Life insurance companies, owners of some ghetto buildings, have taken out full-page ads in newspapers across the country to warn that traffic noise as well as slums is making second-class citizens of poor and rich alike.
The Portland, Oregon, Chamber of Commerce started with an environmental committee and now has added a noise subcommittee. That same city's City Club has a committee on noise. And New York's Board of Trade is sponsoring an all-inclusive Business Council for Environmental Protection.
Another illustration of business community involvement was the substantial contribution to CQC made by Scali, McCabe and Sloves, a young New York advertising agency. Not only did this agency prepare public service newspaper and magazine ads and radio messages, it helped out with office space and other contributions.
Even the noisemaker has begun to commit himself to noise abatement. The chairman of that New York Council is William I. Wearly, top executive of Ingersoll-Rand, manufacturers of construction equipment. James W. Wilcock, president of Joy Manufacturing Company, is on the Honorary Board of CQC. Both men are becoming leaders in the design of quieter construction equipment.
From drills for concrete to drills for teeth, manufacturers are beginning to sense a demand for quiet products. Quiet is becoming a competitive feature. Enlightened self-interest is at work.
One reason Bethlehem Steel agreed to develop a quieter metal garbage can for CQC was the threat of competition from new plastic and paper containers. Encouraged by the national and international interest in that quieter can, Bethlehem has embarked upon a new program to provide a noise control service to other users of its metal stock, manufacturers of dishwashers for one. Owens-Corning has a giant acoustic facility to help develop quieter appliances and architectural products for its clients.
Business is motivated to design for quiet by the thought of benefits from noise control, or, conversely, the threat of some form of loss. Standard Oil (New Jersey) sought goodwill when it built a new refinery. It took out institutional ads to let the public know its new installation was going to be a quiet neighbor.
At the public demonstration of his firm's quieter giant air compressor, Ingersoll-Rand's Wearly observed that the development of this improved equipment "reflects I-R's concern not only to be an innovator among manufacturers of machinery, equipment and tools, but to be a good neighbor as well. Undeniably construction is a noisy business. However, it is our aim—through research—to reduce noise to a level that will not trouble citizens of the communities in which we live and work."
Whether or not business is convinced it must design for quiet, Madison Avenue sees sales in advertising quiet, and noisemakers are not as afraid as they once were to face the issue. In 1965 the one American company with a muffled jackhammer was publicity-shy. Chicago Pneumatic Tool, since the Lincoln Center demonstration, has redesigned its brochures and devoted its midtown Manhattan ground floor window to an attractive display of its quieter tool.
Gracious living is the reward promised for using Carvel Hall's non-motorized knives which carve silently. "Make friends with the People Downstairs," suggests one carpet ad. "It can be done. If they don't hear every step you take, every pin you drop, every word you say. Bedroom carpeting gives you privacy..."
Aware of a growing resistance to sleepless nights, motels are advertising that they are located away from noisy highways. The Marriott Hotel chain invites businessmen to hold their meetings at their hotels, and after dinner enjoy a quiet sleeping room.
Mobil Gas advertises that its travel guide helps motorists find a quiet place to sleep. Mobil's inspector, the ads say, turns on all the noise sources in a motel—TV, heating, air conditioning—and then, turning them off, lies down in bed and keeps very quiet. He listens for noises from other rooms. One hopes he also listens for traffic noise and the noise of a Mobil or competitor's truck refilling the oil tanks for the motel's heating system.
When New York's infamous utility Con Edison changed chiefs, the new chief, Charles Luce, admitted in full-page ads that when Con Ed dug it dug noisily. But, he added, Con Ed was now trying to do its digging more quietly, and was experimenting with silenced equipment. (It also set up a novel internal taskforce on noise abatement.)