
Loud and expensive renovations shattering a formerly quiet block in Manhattan - hourislate
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/nyregion/gentrification-one-percent-manhattan.html
======
dsfyu404ed
I get to hear jake brakes at literally any time of day (nearby paper mill runs
24/7), hourly freight trains (see paper mill) and police sirens slightly less
often (in case the paper mill didn't tip you off that I don't live somewhere
that's highly gentrified). I'm not gonna feel bad about rich people that have
to listen to heavy machinery during business hours no matter what day of the
week it is.

I'd be more sympathetic if the constant noise was before 7am or after 9pm but
the fact of the mater is that it's not so I'm not.

~~~
rmellow
Why discriminate against rich people?

Edit: Yes, my gut feeling was that I would be downvoted for asking this, but
it's a genuine question. Thanks for correcting me HN </s>.

~~~
mcguire
Would anyone care if they weren't rich people?

~~~
ada1981
Exactly.

How about the impoverished little kids of NYC who have to deal with the noise
of domestic abuse, gunshots, police sirens, etc.

~~~
jonfw
I think a whole lot more people care about the impoverished, than those who
live on this block.

~~~
ada1981
Are you saying that the people caring for the impoverished is greater than the
care for the people who live on the block?

Or that the total number of people who care for the impoverished is a greater
number than the number of people who live on the block?

Seems both are true.

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jackcarter
From a comment on the article: "The normal way to excavate bedrock is
dynamite. This would probably not be feasible on this site. But at this rate,
from the photo, they are going to be jackhammering for another three years to
reach thirty seven and a half feet. I’ve read that in London the Uber rich do
these basement pool - theatre complexes all the time under their town houses,
but probably digging out dirt. The neighbors should get their council persons
involved to pressure DOB to put a blanket prohibition on what is clearly an
untenable method of excavation. A Bedrock Amendment: if the site isn’t big or
isolated enough for blasting, bedrock is the limit."[0]

In London, lavish basements have become trendy[1], but they don't have to deal
with bedrock so close to the surface. The Guardian article only mentions the
noise once.

[0][https://nyti.ms/2D2qPOp#permid=31403929](https://nyti.ms/2D2qPOp#permid=31403929)

[1][https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/may/07/pool-
basement-...](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/may/07/pool-basement-
wealth-super-rich-digging-down-london)

~~~
logfromblammo
Fracking has solved the problem. The answer is right-angle drilling, plus the
wet diamond-belt saw already used in quarries since 1984.

Drill many holes at the boundary, to the desired depth. Right-angle drill to
connect the bottoms of the holes. Pull the saw through the holes to cut the
sides of the block-columns. Now grab one block-column, lift it with a crane,
and use the saw to make horizontal cuts at appropriate intervals to make rock
blocks. Ship the blocks upstate, and use them to construct a mausoleum pyramid
on your country estate. ~Or send them to your dwarven workshops to make mugs,
tables, doors, and thrones.~

A rich of sufficient moxie would also cut new "local bedrock" countertops out
of their own basement-quarry and tell all the other riches they know about how
great it is to eat off of what used to be the floor of their very own
basement, before they cut it out to make two sub-basements.

Jackhammering makes gravel. Quarrying makes usable blocks.

~~~
wool_gather
Maybe I don't understand the "right angle drill" but how do you position this
at the _bottom_ of the depth you're excavating, _while you 're trying to
excavate_?

~~~
logfromblammo
Drill vertically to the desired depth. At the bottom of that hole, drill
horizontally.

I think the idea is that rather than rotating a power-transfer shaft with a
drill bit fixed on the end, you just rotate the drill bit with a "mud motor"
and circulate the power-transfer fluid with a pump on the surface. The end of
the hole can then proceed in any direction, and the only thing you need to
feed down the hole is hydraulic pressure and more length of high-pressure
hoses and perhaps data wires to control the bit assembly.

You only need a straight line if you're using the torque on a rigid shaft to
transfer power. If you can get the mud-powered drill bit assembly to fit
within the bore of the vertical hole, you can drill in any direction you want
from the bottom of it. It drills in that direction, and pulls itself into the
hole it is boring.

This is only necessary because the stone saw is essentially a cable with high
tensile strength coated in tiny bits of diamond. In order to cut, you have to
pull the circulating cable through the rock. It's like slicing cheese by
putting the cheese on top of a wire and lifting the wire up, rather than by
pushing down on it with a knife. Vertical cuts in the rock extend upward from
the length of the horizontal drill holes. You are then left with square
pillars separated by straight kerf-width grooves.

Now you set anchors in the top of a pillar, and use your crane to apply upward
force to counteract the weight of the pillar down to the bottom. Send some
decent bearings down to the bottom of the holes, and thread your saw cable
down one vertical shaft, around a well-anchored bearing, around three
horizontal shafts, around another bearing, and back up an adjacent vertical
shaft. Cut through the bottom of the pillar. Stop pulling before you ruin your
bearings.

At this point, use the crane to lift the pillar enough to get a lifting jack
under it. Now you can work at the surface. Push the pillar up from below with
the jack, and cut off the anchor block. Push up more, and cut off height at
regular intervals. Some of your blocks will have a quarter of a drill hole on
their edges, or anchor bolt holes in them, but most will be as perfect as
lasers can make them.

~~~
logfromblammo
And it just occurred to me that if you have good cable bearings, you can
anchor them to the bottom of the vertical holes and cut downward from the
surface instead of upward from horizontally-drilled shafts.

------
crazygringo
Construction noise is part of large city life. I live in NYC and you just deal
with it. It sucks, but it's limited to business hours so it doesn't affect
your evenings or sleep or weekends.

I'm not clear what makes this one construction site newsworthy over the 100's
of others?

Is it that bedrock excavation is unusual and should be outlawed? Is it that
there are quieter excavation methods that should be legally enforced? Is it
that some board gave approval when they shouldn't have and there was
corruption or incompetence? The article doesn't say, so I don't get what this
is actually about.

~~~
wycy
The article was written because the noise is annoying to other rich people.
You're not supposed to do that to the rich.

~~~
cosmie
> But along West 69th Street and stretches of West 68th Street (where I live
> and work and am also serenaded by the drilling, including at this very
> moment)

The article was written because the noise is annoying to the journalist that
wrote it.

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bootsz
I live on 80th in the UWS and there is similar construction that's been going
on behind my building since I moved in last year. Luckily I'm not home during
the week, but they still fire up the jackhammers at 8:00 AM sharp on
Saturdays. One time I heard a guy screaming "f-you it's f--ing saturday" out
his window at them for like 5 minutes straight. The hammering stopped for a
brief instant, then immediately resumed, drowning him out.

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akgerber
Tokyo, unlike NYC, seems to have noise regulations for construction,
apparently enforced by a decibel meter mounted to the construction site:
[https://i.imgur.com/aOOBrIS.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/aOOBrIS.jpg)
[https://www.env.go.jp/en/laws/air/noise/ap.html](https://www.env.go.jp/en/laws/air/noise/ap.html)

That probably has something to do with the healthier relationship there
between the population & new construction.

~~~
plopz
Is Japan's relationship with new construction healthy? From what I understand
houses in Japan are like cars in the west, they depreciate over time. When
someone buys an old house they knock it down and build a new one. I can see
some value in that, since the houses can be more customized to the owner as
opposed to builder basic beige that we get here. But it also means houses
aren't built to last which I find kind of sad.

------
ben7799
The funny thing about NYC residents complaining about this kind of thing is if
they lived anywhere else for a while and came back then the normal background
noise level of the city without construction would seem so loud as to seem
unbearable.

It's all just an example of the crazy weird microcosm that NYC is.. everyone
living in a bubble of insanity and unable to tell.

~~~
ghaff
I actually rather like visiting Manhattan but a few days is about my limit.
Even for people who find ordinary city living quite tolerable, Manhattan takes
things up a few notches compared to most places. I lived in Manhattan one
summer for an intern position when in grad school (admittedly in a
dirtier/more dangerous city than it is today) and pretty much decided I
couldn't live there no matter how much money I was offered.

~~~
amyjess
Yeah, I visited NYC last year for a week, and it was so much fun, but I would
never ever want to actually live there. I could've done with spending a second
week there, though.

Admittedly, I had a bit of a skewed experience on my trip: I was in Manhattan
during the day but spent my nights staying with my cousin and her family in
Westchester. This meant I didn't get to spend nearly as much time in the city
as I wanted to (which is why I wish I had a second week there), but it also
limited my exposure to noise and prevented me from getting sick of it.

------
whatshisface
In most neighborhoods you can't blast loud music 24/7 without getting a visit
from the police. Does construction get an exception in New York?

~~~
tashoecraft
It's not 24/7, it's 8am to probably 5/6pm. I had a building go up literally
next door for 2 years. We lost two windows in rooms that have no other natural
light. It was annoying, but we dealt with it.

------
helsinki
I live in downtown Jersey City and large construction projects essentially
have free reign over the physical and mental peace of the neighbors. My
apartment would shake with each jackhammer strike for months as soon as 7am
hit. It made WFH nearly impossible. I couldn't even take important phone calls
during business hours. The construction is still ongoing. On the bright side,
my rent isn't increasing any time soon. The real estate barons can do whatever
they want around here.

In addition to that, the same real estate developer built another unsightly
building only feet away from 50% of the residents' only view. Resulting in
zero privacy, beauty, and sunlight. Not to mention, a 30% decrease in each
owner's property valuation.

Fuck Shuster Group.

~~~
apohn
Living in Downtown Jersey City (2 years ago) was the noisiest and most rage
inducing experience of my life. I also made the stupid decision of living
close to Marin and Columbus, and experienced sirens at all hours. Those
included cops who could seemed to turn on their sirens to go through the red
light at that intersection and turn it off as soon as they got through. Sirens
+ all day construction noise was just torture.

Jersey City cured me of my desire to ever live in NYC. Parts of NYC are
quieter, but there's always noise. The suburbs might be boring, but at least I
can WFH without going crazy.

------
fastball
This is the cost of living in a city.

Anything else is NIMBYism, and NIMBYism kills progress.

~~~
mschuster91
> This is the cost of living in a city.

No, it's not. In Europe, construction and related noise is regulated. This
shit would not fly here for long.

~~~
ovi256
Here in real-world Europe, I have 2 construction sites within 20m of my
building applying the same rules. Jackhammer allowed between 8am-7pm, 6 days a
week. They stop one hour for siesta time at the nearby kindergarten on
weekdays.

How else do you think cities got built in the first place ?

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amyjess
This is (one of several reasons) why I have no desire to ever live in a city.
This is one the _nice_ neighborhoods, and it's riddled with unbearable noise.

I am very happy in my noise-free suburb.

~~~
waah_waah24
congrats?

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rboyd
Had a Chicago landlord that rented me top floor on a brownstone and promptly
started construction refacing the entire brick facade. Construction workers
wake up pretty early.

------
lwhalen
Welcome to city-living. If you want peace and quiet, move to the suburbs or
the countryside. Spend some of the bajillions you'd save in housing on getting
a solid ISP link out to your home, and help your new neighbors get wired up to
the 'net while you're at it.

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srmatto
This is happening or happened in London as well. This is a short video about
it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIpWAd9SoD4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIpWAd9SoD4)

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pastor_elm
There is loud, obnoxious development going on throughout NYC 24/7\. I'm
supposed to care only if it's bothering a well off broadway director on the
Upper West Side?

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xivzgrev
TLDR: property owner renovating extensively. Neighbors don’t like noise. Not
sure how this is a news story except it’s happening in New York City.

~~~
assblaster
"Only on weekends and the holidays of the politically potent — Christmas and
Rosh Hashana, for example, but not Martin Luther King’s Birthday — does it
cease."

Why does the author feel obligated to inject race into this story? The author
could have said Labor Day instead (which would have been ironic).

~~~
ada1981
Real estate is inherently a race issue in that our country was built upon a
system that denied blacks the right to own land for the better part of our
history and has continued to make ownership difficult through higher interest
rates and other schemes.

Even our esteemed President worked to ensure blacks weren’t given access to
real estate in NYC.

Issues like this get press time in the paper of record over other actual
issues that impact people who aren’t privileged.

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papermill
Welcome to NYC. There is construction every other block. And that's not even
considering things like the 2nd Ave line construction which creates noise
pollution for years on end. Is this news because wealthy people are affected?

I wonder how things would be if NYC allowed construction once every 3 years?

