SEPTEMBER 27, 2019

Building Is Booming 24/7. So Is the Noise.

By Aaron Randle

It's Friday.

Weather: Mostly sunny, with a high in the mid-70s and a light wind. Tomorrow and Sunday look to be pleasant, too.

Alternate-side parking: In effect until Monday (Rosh Hashana).

Andrew Renneisen for The New York Times

Construction is booming in New York. So, too, are noise complaints.

"If you are trying to read, you can't. If you are trying to sleep, you can't," Michael Riley, who lives in Manhattan's Flatiron district, told my colleague Jeffery C. Mays.

The cacophony near his home became so loud at night that Mr. Riley said he had considered installing $40,000 sound-dampening windows. He opted instead for $250 noise-canceling headphones.

In 2018, construction spending here reached a record $61.5 billion, according to the New York Building Congress, a trade group. But many residents near work sites say the accompanying noise — particularly at night — is too disruptive.

The problem

Normal construction hours are from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays, but many workers can toll into the wee hours because the city's Department of Buildings issues after-hours variance permits, which authorize overnight construction.

City officials say the permits allow for work that is safer for the public and less disruptive to traffic when done at night.

Last year, the Buildings Department issued about 67,000 such permits — more than double the number provided in 2012, records show.

But as construction work at night increases, so do grievances from residents. Last year, the Buildings Department received about 3,700 noise complaints about late-night construction.

The potential solution

City Councilwoman Carlina Rivera introduced a bill on Wednesday that would allow construction no earlier than 6 a.m. and no later than 10 p.m. on weekdays. Work would be permitted on weekends from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Ms. Rivera said her bill was also meant to address construction's effect on the displacement of average New Yorkers. "I want to make sure we don't continue to rubber-stamp construction that leads to more empty luxury towers," she told Mr. Mays.

But construction officials told him the bill was misguided.

"We are living in an era where everyone wants to blame the real estate and construction industries for the woes of society," Carlo Scissura, president and chief executive of the New York Building Congress, said. "In reality, we are building everything in New York that people take for granted."

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Want more news? Check out our full coverage.

The Mini Crossword: Here is today's puzzle.

What we're reading

Tolls are increasing at six interstate crossings for the first time since 2015. [SI Live]

Get a Wu Tang Clan MetroCard before the subway fully embraces a "tap-and-go" fare system. [New York Post]

What we're watching: The Times's co-chief theater critics Ben Brantley and Jesse Green preview the Broadway season, and Jessie Wender, a photo editor, talks about Dumbo, Brooklyn, on "The New York Times Close Up With Sam Roberts." The show airs tonight at 8, on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. and on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. [CUNY TV]

Coming up this weekend

Friday:

View classic and vintage hot rods, and enjoy free hot dogs, at Joe's Garage Hot Rod Show at Joe's Garage Bar in Queens. 5 p.m.-10 p.m. [Free]

Pull out the knitting needles for the N.Y.C. Yarn Crawl. The event, which runs through Sunday in Manhattan and Brooklyn, includes store discounts. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. [Free]

Saturday:

The Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Chile Pepper Festival includes spicy food and features New Orleans musicians. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. [$30]

The Brooklyn Conservatory of Music's woodwind quartet holds its Family Concert Series. At an "instrument petting zoo," guests can get close-up looks at instruments. 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. [$20]

Sunday:

The Bronx Native American Festival has crafts, storytelling, food and more. 12 p.m.-4 p.m. [Free]

Dr. Hsing-Lih Chou, a pioneer of the Taiwan campus folk song movement, is part of a concert at Flushing Town Hall in Queens. [$10]

— Emmett Lindner

Events are subject to change, so double-check before heading out. For more events, see the going-out guides from The Times's culture pages.

And finally: An ode to a singular movie star

Who is New York's biggest movie star? Perhaps it is New York herself.

"New York is a movie star with Paris as its only serious rival among the world's great metropolises," A.O. Scott, the co-chief film critic at The Times, wrote in a recent article. "Its charisma is that of an old-fashioned screen idol, like Bette Davis, Cary Grant or Sidney Poitier."

Whether glamorous and gussied up, or seemingly weary and broken down, the city, remains "unmistakably itself" and as mercurial, seductive, temperamental and invigorating as any star that has graced her stage, he wrote.

In the article, Mr. Scott discusses archival Times photos that captured the city's locales as unforgettable characters. Here are five places he mentioned:

—Grand Central Terminal: A film crew took over the train station in 1967 for "Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?" The movie was a recreation of the 1965 blackout that happened in the city.

—Roosevelt Island: In 1971, the director Gordon Parks turned the abandoned City Hospital into a Greenwich Village hotel for "Shaft."

—Battery Park: In 1984, the director Susan Seidelman used the park as the backdrop for the personal-ad rendezvous scene in "Desperately Seeking Susan."

—Fifth Avenue: A film crew in 1992 created a fake blizzard on the Manhattan street for "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York."

—Stuyvesant Avenue: The entirety of Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" was shot on the avenue, in Brooklyn, in 1989. An empty lot became a functional Sal's Famous Pizzeria.

It's Friday — aim for the stars.