PS 343 (Queens Post)
Feb. 9, 2018 By Nathaly Pesantez
Residents living near PS 343 in Sunnyside have had to endure a blaring, high-pitched tone emanating from the roof of the school for weeks in a quality of life problem that the city has at last resolved.
The deafening ringing-sound from the school, located at 45-45 42nd St. prompted a resident to create a URL—www.SunnysideNoise.org–that links to a YouTube page showing a series of videos near the school where the noise can be heard loud and clear. The six videos were recorded through the month of January.
“This has been mind-numbing and ear-splitting,” reads a comment left a week ago on one of the videos.
Another comment compares the noise to “a subtle form of psychological torture.”
Margaret Kiernan, a 69-year-old resident of the six-story apartment building next to the school, says the sound began as early as 5:30 a.m. at times, and blared intermittently through the day, even up until 9:30 p.m. The high-pitched tone sometimes went on for 20 minutes, she added.
“It’s a very annoying, very disturbing sound,” Kiernan said. “You still hear it after it stops.”
Kiernan, along with other neighbors, have called 311, Councilmember Van Bramer’s office, and Department of Environmental Protection, the city agency that deals with noise codes and complaints, to get the harrowing noise to stop.
“DEP has inspected and DOE is working to identify the source of the issue and rectify,” a spokesperson for the DEP said on Thursday.
DEP inspectors told Van Bramer’s office that the noise stemmed from two faulty boilers on the roof of the elementary school, according to a spokesperson for his office.
But workers have already fixed one of the boilers as of Wednesday morning, and completed work on the other boiler by midday on Thursday, the spokesperson said.
“This is a major quality of life issue for the people who live in the neighborhood,” Van Bramer said in a statement. “People should not have to live with this noise waking them up in the early morning hours and continuing into the evening.”
His office said they will continue to follow up with constituents to make sure the noise doesn’t return.
The Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment.
Featured Events
54 Comments
I don’t know if there’s any staff working at the school, but I haven’t heard the noise since around Dec 20th. Can anyone else in the neighborhood confirm this? Thanks
Hello everyone, I’m the one that originally posted the videos and started the SunnySideNoise.org domain. As I’m sure you are aware, the noise is back and not fixed. I just started posting new videos again and started a SunnySideNoise.org blog. There’s power in numbers, and the only way this will be fixed again is if we all make our voices heard. Hopefully the Sunnyside Post can help by requesting a comment from the principal of the school or Van Bramer’s office. With COVID, people are having to stay home more than ever, and we shouldn’t have to be tortured like this. I’ve called the school when the ringing noise is happening, but they just say they’ll “tell the custodian” about it. The custodian is clearly not the person who can do anything about this.
I have limited computer abilities, but I’m in the process of posting more videos and making some flyers to hand out around the neighborhood. This video is from Dec 7th:
https://youtu.be/b2Y4ZkHZNTw
Came across this thread trying to google this sound, it is still going on, hear it more clearly at night, does anyone know what it is?
i’m sure is their lousy (new) HVAC system doing this. this city hires contractors that cut every corner possible just so they can be called back for repairs and siphon more money from the taxpayer. i have developed a ringing in both my ears since this started a few weeks ago and its affecting my health as i am unable to sleep properly. i’m sure the school could care less about addressing the issue considering this has been going on for weeks.
Please follow upon this story as the boilers have NOT been fixed and it is still very much a problem!
Am I the only person who still hears this annoying high pitch noise to this day? I live right across the street from this school and this is an absolute torture.
the only thing these city establishments will understand is legal action. this has been going on for quite some time.
Did anyone check with the school to see what’s the cause of this noise? Since this article was posted, I have been paying more attention to this noise and it’s actually annoying. I don’t really hear the whistling sound, more of a machinery or factory type of howling sound.
Supposedly the noise was coming from the exhaust from the boiler and as of last week has been fixed. May I ask approximately where do younow and live? I ask because we are monitoring the noise situation and another noise is being heard and we are trying to identify the source. We live right next to the school and the acoustics are very bad. Please post if you hear anything. Thanks.
Hi Margeret,
I tried to contact the youtube channel owner, but there is no way to reach them. Is there a gmail address we can just contact and share our videos of other horrible sunnyside noises? I live on 44th and my apartment faces 43rd side. At night I can hear a sound that sounds like a vent unit, or more like laundromat dryers working all night. When I walk on 44th, I can hear other noises especially from associated market but it doesn’t bother me as much as the noise coming from the 43rd side or the vicinity. I cannot pinpoint the source of the sound. There is no high pitch sound but more howling sound.
ShopLocal1 – My suggestion for sharing videos etc, would be to post on http://www.sunnysidenoise.org. There are quite a few people partaking in the noise conversation. I live right next to the school and the noise you are hearing is coming from the exhaust vents from the dryers in the apartment building. I have reported this several times over the past 3 years. I just put in a call to the laundry company again this week. So you identified the noise very well. I do believe there are other noises that could also be running during the night. I need to make a few more calls.
The same sound can be heard on the corner of Queens Blvd and 60th Street for months now, and yet it seems nobody is looking into it. I don’t mind since I don’t live there, but so many people do. I guess they’d rather live with it than complain to anyone.
JVB SAYS: “This is a major quality of life issue for the people who live in the neighborhood,” Van Bramer said in a statement. “People should not have to live with this noise waking them up in the early morning hours and continuing into the evening.” What about the homeless shelters in our neighborhood and the quality of life issues they have created? Why don’t you speak up about that in our community?
I always heard this around noon – one random days I was home and even on weekends – it was horrible. Happy someone has taken charge on this cause I hated it.
We are still hearing it. Is there any development?
Supposedly the noise was coming from the exhaust from the boiler and as of last week has been fixed. May I ask approximately where do younow and live? I ask because we are monitoring the noise situation and another noise is being heard and we are trying to identify the source. We live right next to the school and the acoustics are very bad. Please post if you hear anything. Thanks.
What exactly are you hearing? Can you describe it? Supposedly the high pitched has been fixed.
@Me- “Can you tell us what problems you experienced since PS343 was built, and also where do you live? No need to give address, I am just curious how both PS434 and the 48th st schools both will affect you?” . Sounds like you shot your mouth off too soon. Hahaha
I live on the same street as the school and this noise was driving me crazy! I even bought ear plugs but they didn’t help much because the nose was too high pitched.
Justine,
I’ve been hearing the noise as well, I did not know it was from the school. Did anyone go to school and ask what is causing this and if it can be turned off at nights at least? Someone said boiler, but boiler in a school should not be on at weekends or at night? Maybe it wasn’t installed properly? There is more than just a high pitched noise, there is a humming noise that you hear from near the queens blvd side where I live. Only time I don’t hear it is when train is passing that I can see from my window.
My apartment is about half a block from the school, which I can see from my front windows. I have excellent hearing, and haven’t noticed any deafening noise from that direction, either day or night. The only sound I hear from the school comes from the roof chimes, which sound daily at n00n.
You were very lucky not to have been tortured by it because many were.
It’s high-frequency tone that’s inaudible to the elderly.
The bells that chime at noon come from the school?
Sounds like JVB’s shrieking cries since he didn’t win city council speaker position.
What’s even funnier is that its called “a quality of life problem”. Hysterical! Made me laugh so hard! There is absolutely less than zero quality of life in NYC.
OSHA- You must have 6 devices.
ok the problem was found and fixed, this has nothing to do with the new school going up on 48. Build it! Dont listen to the NIMBY crybabies.
Hopefully they will do a better job on 48 as opposed to the monstrosity which is PS 343
We have planes over our homes, over P.S. 11 and St. Sebastian’s every 39 seconds, sometimes 24/7! Jimmy is NOT concerned with “noise” until it is near his home or office!
Those planes have been there for over 60 years and come with the neighborhood.
This is the kind of stuff that the residents of Sunnyside Gardens should come to expect with the monstrosity that is going to be built on 48th Street.
True, only schools have boilers. Thank you for the time comment. We need more people like you to stand up against these threatening children and their school. We need pool halls, not schools.
they just want parking lots, dammit. and landmarked ones at that, because their dormant cars are more important than hundreds of kids learning.
Fake Bruno- Go stand in front of 125 when it lets out at 2:30 you’ll know the true meaning of “threatening”. Find the 3 students who were charged with attempted murder of another student last year.
So get NYPD to do something about it. For 3 thugs you want to shut the whole school? Maybe they should tear down the school because someone was charged with attempted murder.. I guess you never went to high school? Or you went to some fancy school everyone behaved their best?
@me- You’re ridiculous. You ask people to provide problems related to or concerning schools then attack them for providing an actual problematic event.
Me- Don’t forget the theft of the zip car at the garage on 47th and QB last year, that was committed by three students from the middle school on 47th street.
Fake Kelly M — I’ve been around plenty of schools. I’m not scared of children. Empty parking lots, and pool halls are where actual criminals and vagrants hang out.
Bruno- The answer to the question nobody asked. Nobody said anything about being afraid of children. Nice try.
You keep using the children as both a spear and a shield. It is not about the kids it is about the traffic and congestion. People hate to feel out of control in their own environments. What the city is doing to this part of Queens thoroughly disrupts the rhythms and patterns of life in western Queens for the people who were proud to be from here despite it being derided as “bridge and tunnel” territory. New people who refuse to see that make themselves into local versions of the “ugly American.” When you are new in someone else’s home, no matter how humble or exalted, it is rude to aggressively point out all the flaws in it that you are now going to improve. Why must you agressively and irritably disdain us because your “improvements” destroy what others value? All locals would like to improve the property, but without drastically changing the character of the neighborhood they love. It is a parking lot, we need a parking lot. The area was not designed for families with two and more vehicles in mind. I’d much rather it be a parking lot, even if it had to have more floors added. That would directly suit the needs of many people who live here, not just the parents of school age children. And it would not drastically change the character of the area. Yet I am scorned and derided as anti-child when I say so. The heated real estate market has turned people against each other in ugly ways that was not characteristic of this neighborhood before. It is sad.
Neighborhoods change, get over it. When the place you live isn’t suitable or comfortable enough, you just move, problem solved. Prices are through the roof, I am sure you can sell your place and buy a much nicer place for half the price away from all these students, traffic etc… Right?
Me- If everybody had your attitude there would be a highway going through the center of Greenwhich Village and Brooklyn Heights would have been bulldozed.
Not having schools for local children to attend is MORE disruptive to the community. There are areas where kids are not welcome and schools do not existent but that’s not the case around here. We have many kids and we need schools!
Bruno- You obviously can’t win on the merits of your own argument so you have continuously attempt to twist what people say. May I add you’re not very good or clever at that either.
David is triggered by schoolchildren. (Same with Kelly M, Dale, and Alice — all the same person with different logins. I checked.)
I live close to this school and I think it’s a great addition to the neighborhood. Communities need schools and a new one will bring improvements to that area. This project is long overdue.
Super- The school in the article, PS343 sits on a lot that was originally zoned for a house of worship and on a block that actually abuts Queens Blvd. The new school on 48th street was originally built as a garage and zoned for light industry and blocks away from the major arteries of Northern Blvd and Queens Blvd.
The three streets that abut PS343 are better equipped to handle the pedestrian traffic being only one block from Queens Blvd. The disregard to zoning laws and the handing out of variances has actually harmed this borough and undermined the quality of life. The disregard to the zoning laws can be directly attributed to overcrowding of the 7 train (the over development of Flushing), the traffic problems in the area (knocking down of one and two family houses and replacing them with twenty unit apartment buildings). PS343 is actually suited and properly zoned for the lot it occupies unlike the new school on 48th street. Expect problems.
Can you tell us what problems you experienced since PS343 was built, and also where do you live? No need to give address, I am just curious how both PS434 and the 48th st schools both will affect you?
@Me- You need to learn to address your questions, ther are dozens of people posting to this stream.
Me, The new school on 48th street will be a middle school expected to seat 697 students from grades six to eight in a four to five story building. PS343 is an elementary school K-5 seating 430 students. They’re distinctly 2 different animals. The new school will have problems more in line with IS125. The problems with 125 are documented assaults, vandalism, petty theft..etc. etc. this is what the people in the gardens should expect.
these people talk about noise wait until they build that new school on 48th Street and Barnett Avenue talk about NOISE – it will be horrible and they neighbors will be
complaining big time and rightly so
sad – but wait no Photo-op for Mr. JVB that will be coming next –
The job requires a degree of “publicity” so low information people like you know who your public officials are.