Muting the City: New York’s Struggle with Noise

Lilian Radovac of the University of Toronto talks about the history of noise control efforts under the LaGuardia, Lindsay, and Bloomberg administrations, drawing on her current book project, the first historical work to explore the subject. Arline Bronzaft, the CUNY psychologist who has advised five NYC mayors on noise control and helped the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) update its code in 2007, talks about the negative health and learning impacts of noise in NYC, and what can be done. Juan Pablo Bello, lead investigator at NYU’s Sounds of New York City (SONYC) project, talks about how the “aural map” SONYC is creating to help the DEP measure and monitor noise, to better enforce the code.