It finally struck me that if anything were to be done about noise, the noise receiver himself would have to do it. There was no "George" protecting the public from excessive noise—not on any level of government.
In Europe, I learned, citizens had organized to fight noise so effectively that the struggle had already gone beyond national boundaries. The national organizations were cooperating as the International Association Against Noise (known by its French initials, AICB). This heartening news led to my joining the British Noise Abatement Society. John Connell, its founder and chairman, taught me the first principle of noise abatement: fight with knowledge and strength. With his encouragement, I decided to form a neighborhood noise abatement organization as a first step toward a sane acoustic environment.
I sent out a call for a neighborhood meeting, and on a hot, muggy night in May 1965, a hundred people showed up. I had invited city councilmen and district leaders of both major parties, as well as the Borough President of Manhattan. Councilman Kupferman attended, and the Borough President sent a representative.
A steering committee was appointed, consisting of two lawyers, a civil engineer, an engineering magazine editor, and myself as chairman. We christened the organization the Upper Sixth Avenue Noise Abatement Association (USANAA). There would be no dues, and we would operate as an informal association of neighbors.
After a thorough exploration, the idea of a lawsuit was discarded as being too costly and unlikely to bring any relief. Instead, I was authorized to continue my attempts to draw attention to the problem and to learn all I could about noise abatement.
It is easier to gain an audience with the Pope than it is to meet with a transportation agency commissar. Determined to present to the Transit Authority a bundle of petitions USANAA had gathered, I sought a meeting with one of the TA's three commissioners.
And so it happened that one morning, July 16, 1965, more than a year after the subway project uprooted our lives, attorney Ralph Brazen, plus a representative of one of the blighted apartment buildings, and myself found ourselves in the TA's inner sanctum, face to face with Commissioner Dan Scannell, Chief Engineer Nathan Brodkin, several lesser engineers, and the contractor's foreman. From the very beginning we were put on the defensive. There was not one iota of acknowledgment that we had a legitimate grievance and that something should be done to lessen the noise. The TA tried to make it seem that I was the troublemaker, the only one who was stirring up a fuss. The two responsible citizens with me, and the petitions containing 400 signatures, were conveniently ignored.
The TA officials proved to be ignorant of industrial safety codes, ignorant of the basic principles of noise measurement and control, and totally indifferent to our discomfort.
For every point we raised, the Transit Authority had a rebuttal.
When the real estate representative reported extensive losses from leases cancelled and unrenewed because of the excessive noise, the Chief Engineer tiredly answered, "These tenants are not disturbed by the noise. They don't like the horrible appearance of the torn-up street. Anyway, if they don't like it, let them move." This, to a real estate man whose complaint was that the tenants were moving!
Commissioner Scannell had little to say, except that he believed the noise problem was caused by traffic.
When we placed in evidence brochures and other indications of advances in construction-noise silencing in England, to name just one country, the Chief Engineer answered that England was a socialist country, and that the English and the Europeans in general built more slowly than we did. When I persisted with data on silenced equipment and techniques available in the United States, he sucked in his breath and delivered what he must have thought was the coup de grace: "Do you, Mr. Baron, by demanding quieter subway construction, wish to jeopardize the fifteen-cent fare?" Then, turning to his staff, he sighed, "Ah, I can hardly wait until August first when I start my vacation and can get away from this noisy city."
So sure was the Transit Authority of its invincibility, it could lie with ease. When a local radio station, WMCA, came to our assistance and editorialized that "progress doesn't have to be made at the expense of a community's eardrums," the TA asked for and received equal time to rebut. "Every effort," its spokesman told the radio audience, "has been made to minimize the noise."
The noisemakers also played deaf. The March 1965 issue of The Bulletin, published by The General Contractors Association, contained a paean to the "advances" made in silencing construction equipment. "Why," raved its anonymous author, it's getting so that the construction industry will have eliminated practically all noise with the exception of the raucous yells of the journeymen....In review it is remarkable how little noise is left by the construction industry in its daily activity. The sound of a tuba is a disturber of the peace compared to what the manufacturers have been able to do with the air compressors these days....They purr a muted throbbing hum that is as docile and as soothing as Brahms' Lullaby."
This appeared more than two years before quieter American compressors reached the market.
The TA knew of the misery and ill-will it was causing the residents of upper Sixth Avenue. How else explain its unprecedented modesty in not decorating the subway project with the names of the Commissioners and the Chief Engineer and the rest of the credits that usually accompany a new project? Even a new subway entrance gets a big billboard with everybody's name. But not this immense rare project. Modesty, shame—or a wish to escape additional complaints? Agencies like the Transit Authority should be taking the initiative in encouraging the design of quieter equipment. Instead, when USANAA suggested that the rock drills could be accessory-muffled, the TA replied:
There are no rock drills with noise suppressors available. Inquiries to manufacturers of rock drills reveal that there is not enough of a demand for this type of equipment to justify their production. When such equipment is made generally available, its use by subway contractors will be encouraged by the Transit Authority.
Where is this demand to come from, if not from giant public users of such equipment like this very agency?
So USANAA lost the battle of residential Sixth Avenue. But it started a nation-wide renaissance of education and action for noise abatement.
We had learned a good deal. For one thing, it became obvious that the noise problem was no simple neighborhood nuisance, and that what was urgently needed was a community-wide citizens' noise abatement organization with a broad spectrum of members, including physicians, scientists, clergymen, businessmen, noise control experts, and the communications media.
In May 1966 I attended (and addressed) the IVth International Congress for Noise Abatement in Baden-Baden, West Germany. While there I discovered there were noise-reduced air compressors and jackhammers on the market—in Europe; that there were superior noise laws—in Europe; and that Europeans considered noise as more than a mere nuisance. With this information I was able to persuade attorney and writer on public affairs John Wharton to act as one of the founders of what we later named Citizens for a Quieter City, Inc. (CQC). Dr. Samuel Rosen, the eminent ear surgeon and auditory researcher, agreed to serve as Chairman of the Board, and Jerome Nathanson, a Leader, N.Y. Society for Ethical Culture, agreed to serve as President.
During this formative period I kept abreast of noise abatement developments by joining the Acoustical Society of America, reading its Journal and attending its meetings and seminars on noise control. In addition I read everything I could find on the subject of noise, its effects on man, and its control.
CQC began operating in January 1967, gradually developing into a recognized "voice of the knowledgeable concerned citizen." We prepared and disseminated a variety of noise abatement literature, experimented with a newsletter, presented papers before professional societies, sent representatives to noise-related meetings, and accepted invitations to testify before government hearings. We encouraged Mayor Lindsay to authorize a Mayor's Task Force on Noise Control. We endorsed the birth of New York City's pioneering Bureau of Noise Abatement. We were responsible for an improvement in the noise insulation provisions of the City's new building code (adopted in November 1968).
More than just raising and clarifying the noise issue, CQC proposed and stimulated solutions.
We initiated New York City's "quiet garbage truck" project, inspired by what I saw in Baden-Baden.
We inspired the development of a quiet metal garbage can, an innovation that became a national symbol of applied noise control.
We also imported, and publicly demonstrated, a quieter jackhammer and air compressor, and reminded the American pneumatic tool industry that the American public was waiting. American versions appeared on the market several months after this demonstration.
Hard work and perseverance was forcing society to move off dead center.
The very existence of CQC became a constant reminder of public concern for noise in the environment. We were cited in government reports, and I was appointed to the Commerce Technical Advisory Board Noise Abatement Panel, U.S. Department of Commerce, established at the direction of the White House in 1968.
The end of the '60s saw the beginning, not of noise abatement, but at least of the setting of ceilings on noise. In 1968 Congress authorized the FAA to certificate aircraft for noise, and in May of 1969 a new regulation required that industry doing more than $10,000 worth of business with the Federal government reduce noise levels so as to not deafen more than ten per cent of its workers.
These noise-oriented activities are only a beginning. Not more than skirmishes against the tyranny of noise.
It may be true that the meek shall inherit the earth, but that will be because it won't be livable, and the noisemaker will be living on other planets. Whether under geodesic domes or under water, the goal for our cities must be as quiet an environment as necessary for human comfort and well-being. This goal is achievable if we end our passive acceptance of industry's acoustic waste products.