What is noise? Is it the ear-piercing rush of the Subway as it dramatically brakes on the platform is a quintessential sound of New York City? Or, is it the hums of conversation in a park on a sunny afternoon? Or, is it the booming bass of a bustling lounge and bar felt through the floorboard of an apartment on a Saturday night?

I would argue that noise—subjectively defined as disruptive sounds—is quintessential to the fabric of New York City. The fast-paced nature of the city is both created and motivated by its soundscape. Washington Heights and Inwood are also famously characterized by the sounds of Dembow music, streets vendors, and loud over-head trains. While some, like myself, find the hum from loud music vibrating through the headboard of a bed melodic and soothing, others find unwanted noise disruptive and “un-unneighborly” behavior. Yet, ironically, many New Yorkers complain that other residential environments are simply “too quiet;” sometimes, eerily. To corroborate and further investigate the role of the urban sonic environment on the livelihood of New Yorkers, I pose the questions: What do 311 “noise” complaints communicate about our urban sonic environment? And, how do New Yorkers navigate disruption and livelihood in Washington Heights and Inwood?

This research project aims to briefly describe the landscape of noise complaints in Manhattan’s Washington Heights and Inwood neighborhoods. To do so, I have chosen to filter the 311 Complaint Dataset from the New York City Open Data Portal by the zip codes covering Washington Heights and Inwood: 10031, 10032, 10033, 10034, and 10040. While some of these zip codes cover other neighborhoods, such as Hamilton Heights towards the southern portion of 10031, for the purpose of this research project we will treat all five zip codes as largely representative of Washington Heights.

Each individual complaint in this dataset is collected by the New York City Office of Technology and Innovation through their “311” service-line, and the online and mobile app NYC311 portals. The complaints in this dataset are representative of anonymous individuals who submit a formal complaint. Their complaint/service request is then streamlined to the agency responsible for resolving the service request at hand. This particular study will review the array of noise complaints created in the year 2024. The dataset has been filtered to represent complaints filed between January 1st, 2024 1:00am to December 31st, 2024 12:59pm.

Results

The visualizations that follow provide a descriptive overview of the dataset.

The noise complaints can be grouped into three predominant categories, those having to do with music, loud talking, or inanimate sounds/noise (see Graph 1). As expected, loud music complaints makeup the majority of the noise complaints. And, in order of highest frequency, these complaints are filed for loud music begin exhibited in public streets/sidewalks, residential buildings/houses, commercial establishments, and coming from vehicles (see Graph 5).

Graphs 2 and 3 show us that loud music follows a similar monthly trend to that observed for the total noise complaint count. (It is important to note that this may be attributed to the fact the music complaints comprise around 90% of the noise complaints total.) From these graphs, we can see that complaint types, and their listed location, are related to seasonal trends. During the colder months, October through March, residential noise complaints increase and street/sidewalk complaints have lower amounts of observations. Inversely, in the warmer months complaints associated with indoor (residential) spaces decrease and those occurring in outdoor spaces (street/sidewalk, commercial, vehicle, and parks) increase in frequency.

Graph 4 demonstrates that the majority of noise complaints, on average for 2024, occurred between 6pm and 3am. The vast majority of which were music related. However, between 4am and 5pm, inanimate sounds are also frequently reported as noise.

For additional exploration, follow this link to explore the geographic visualizations (graphs 6-8): https://public.tableau.com/shared/6XT9HZ62C?:display_count=n&:origin=viz_share_link

Conclusion

This investigation began with the questions: What do 311 “noise” complaints communicate about our urban sonic environment? And, how do New Yorkers navigate disruption and livelihood in Washington Heights and Inwood?

The dataset illustrates that the urban sonic environment is composed of music, loud talking, and inanimate sounds ranging from construction to vehicle engines and more. In Washington Heights and Inwood, places well-known for their palpable cultures, noise complaints are to be expected. Especially in very public places (streets/sidewalks) and very private spaces (residential buildings/homes). The dataset implies that–in a densely populated city that lacks third spaces–very public spaces are gravely important. That would explain why they are the location with the highest frequency of noise complaints year round. And while loud music is the expression of urban livelihood for some, the filing of these complaints represents an attempt to balance out that freedom of expression with the livelihood of those being disrupted by the unwanted noise. Like, reporting loud music during the resting hours of the night. Or, reporting loud sounds that are unnatural.

Your rights end where my rights begin.

Next Steps

To further explore the landscape of the urban soundscape in Washington Heights and Inwood through the 311 Complaints Data, it would be essential to produce a geographical graphs that map the frequency of these complaints. From these maps we can begin to map the flow of sound through the streets and avenues, by months and by hours of the day. This flow of time would give us a deeper dive into the behavior of New Yorkers that warrant noise complaints.

To further explore the question of disruption, it would be interesting to pair this dataset with demographic information on the residents, workers, and institutions in Washington Heights and Inwood. This way I can develop a richer discussion of navigating disruption and livelihood in New York City.

Completed for Project I for DHUM730 Spring 2025.