Living Next to a Public School Can Be Hazardous to Your Health
By Dominick Romeo
A DECIBEL METER RECORDS over 70 decibels at times due to local music festivals. Photo by Dominick Romeo.
As a native New Yorker, living next to a school in New York City can be a challenge. We are faced with a sea of students to navigate through, none of them willing to step to the side so you can get by. They are in a rush to get to classes, and eager to exit for lunch, and bum-rush anyone on the sidewalk when classes end for the day. Not to mention the after school programs or extra curriculular activities scheduled on the weekends – they’re always around!
We neighbors look forward to winter and spring breaks when we are treated with the absence of students for two weeks each time. We breathe a sigh of relief in June, when a feeling of achievement overwhelms us for surviving another brutal academic year, because living on the same block with a public school can be, at times, hazardous to your health.
Living on the first floor, or in the front of a building that faces the street, on a block where there is a school is more troubling. The constant smell of pot from groups of students who light up their joints heading to class or leaving class is overwhelming. And if you keep your windows open in the spring or in the fall to get some fresh air – you’ll be as high as a kite along with these students by the time they get to their destination. It’s no wonder why we rank below average in math, reading and science compared to other countries.
It’s not uncommon for your windows to be smashed with a rock – or to be flash mobbed in your lobby by students who trespass so they can steal your packages – or lunged at or assaulted by a group of students when you try to chase them away. These are just a few examples of living in fear when there is a public school on your block, and it’s even worse if you are a building superintendent.
I regularly chase students away from my building who are smoking weed in front or who have trespassed in an attempt to run off with our delivered goods. These students have been found in our basements and backyards and on our roofs, and because of this, we supers are their #1 targets when they see us sweeping the sidewalks – throwing rocks and water bottles at us while we work – while we are picking up the junk they left behind, five or six times a day. Because if we don’t pick up their discarded pizza crust, their empty beverage bottles and candy wrappers, our building will be fined by the Department of Sanitation to the tune of $100 each day because of them.
To combat this, I am in contact with the principals of the five schools up the block from me, as well as communicating with several teachers who work there. And when a student trespasses, or steals packages, or breaks a window or the glass doors leading into our lobby (all of them caught red-handed on camera) these students do get detention for their actions. The quick response by faculty members has been effective. So much so that I’ve overheard passing students who walk by my building say, “That’s the building that gets us into trouble.”
Mission accomplished!
Noise complaints are a common occurrence when you are a building superintendent, but they can also be selective. Oftentimes, if you like your neighbor, you like their music. There are few complaints if their noise falls within a reasonable volume. But if you are not getting along with your neighbor, and hate their choice of music, this could be an act of war between two residents
One evening, after school had ended, someone decided to blast The Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. ‘Biggy’) Greatest Hits album right in front of my building, and I was really enjoying it! I found myself singing along to this album in my Moo Moo and curlers while sipping on a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. I then received a text from one of my residents saying:
“Can you go outside and ask that person to lower their music?”
“But I LOVE Biggy,” I wrote back.
“BUT I DON’T!!!!” my resident texted.
Last year, the Trust for Public Land, a not-for-profit charitable agency that turns schoolyards into public spaces, fully renovated the school’s playground across the street from us and opened it up for everyone to use on the weekend and on summer hiatus. This was great news for us all! Finally, our community can utilize this space and have some peace of mind from the burden of living on a block with several schools. That was until the middle school turned their newly renovated playground into a music factory, with two or three music festivals per week sometimes.
I’ve received countless complaints from my residents because of this, and I instructed them to make a 311 complaint to the city. But when the cops show up, they tell us that the school has every right to have these music festivals, just so long as they don’t go over the legal noise levels prescribed by city ordinances, which is 42 decibels.
After purchasing a decibel meter of my own I’ve learned that these music festivals are clocking in at well over 70 dBs, leaving those who live nearby this middle school relieved on June 26 – which is the last day of school, and the start of a well-deserved break for us until September…
I love schools, but NIMBY! Older now, retired, so home a lot, love quiet!
Thank you so much for this highly informative article. These completely illegal “music festivals” feature speakers the size of those at Yankee Stadium blasting a violent drumbeat that can be heard at least one long city block away, severely upsetting the nervous system by causing one’s pulse and blood pressure to spike, and with prolonged exposure can eventually cause permanent loss of hearing.
Clearly this is a major political issue waiting for some brave city councilman to champion. (Oh, I almost forgot — the author happens to be running for city council from the 4th district against Eric Bloggett. Well, he’s got my vote right away on just this one issue!)
Mr. Romeo brings up another issue worth writing more about — the City’s army of sidewalk inspectors whose job is to persecute small business owners, bleeding their struggling businesses with fines for conditions beyond their control. Shakedown artists with City badges. Yuk.