Rattle and Roar.(noise in New York City)(Brief Article)

I've always suspected that New York is the noisiest city in the world, but now I'm sure. I was walking down a Manhattan street the other day, trying to retrieve a message on my cell phone, when I realized I couldn't hear a word because men with jackhammers were drilling into the sidewalk. I crossed to the other side and found myself assailed by a wailing ambulance siren. Fleeing, I encountered fire trucks honking their way through traffic, waste-disposal trucks grinding up old metal and buses wheezing to hydraulic halts. I escaped into a subway station only to be met by the deafening rattle and roar of the trains. I gave up trying to listen to my message; my cell phone doesn't work underground anyway.

New York is definitely not the place to live if you dislike what the experts euphemistically call "audible vibratory disturbance." Back in the 1980s, when I was living in bucolic Geneva, I read that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had concluded that 100 million Americans were being exposed to levels of noise far in excess of what the EPA considered safe. The EPA established an Office of Noise Abatement and Control, but its effectiveness remains in doubt. As far as I can tell, New York has not become quieter in the last two decades. If anything, new sources of noise have been added (cell phones, car alarms, the early-morning clatter of tin cans and glass being picked up for recycling). And old sources have gotten worse. The construction industry is busier than ever, with decibel levels to match its rising profits. The New York City Noise Code--yes, there is such a thing--is broken more often than the hearts of Manhattan's singles.

Nearly 100 million Americans suffer from hearing impairments, and many can trace their deafness to being assaulted by noise. But that isn't the only problem. New York's decibel levels contribute directly to the level of stress people here seem to be feel: doctors confirm that excessive noise raises blood pressure, constricts blood vessels, lowers one's willingness to be cooperative with other people and accentuates aggressive behavior patterns. (One study found that people who lived in the flight path of the city's two airports had a higher than average murder rate.) Noise has even been blamed for learning disabilities in children: kids who have to put up with high decibels at home actually have lower reading scores than those who grow up in a tranquil environment.

New York has long been known as "the city that never ...