It sounded like nobody interviewed in that article liked the ice cream truck noise, but accepted that the police won’t do their job–enforcing the law–when requested. Hope she keeps pushing; we get what we’re willing to take.
It isn’t so much to get anyone else’s permission so much as to see if others…especially long-time residents from marginalized communities may feel very differently because they’re familiar with the neighborhood cultural context and issues therein while someone who is a recent transplant…especially one who just moved in as was the case with the complainer are likely to be ignorant of those. .
That’s contradicted by this account from one long-time resident:
And as someone who has friends…especially HS classmates who still live in that area from childhood onward and have passing familiarity with the area from frequently visting the area to visit those friends, business, etc, most of the longtime residents attitudes tend to be more like Graham’s than the complainer.
One issue which is central to this divergence which I’ve tried hinting at and was referenced in the article is how this issue is symptomatic of gentrification and how complaints like the ones in the story tend to drive and exacerbate the negative effects of it on long-time residents who tend to be poorer and from marginalized communities which also generates corresponding pushback from those very long-time residents.
My very unscientific poll among my former NYC HS classmates has no one sympathizing with this person in the article. We all love Mister Softee, jingle and all.
You are not a transplant if you grew up in the Upper West Side and move to Harlem, unless anyone who moves out of their parents’ house is a transplant in which case the word loses all meaning. I’m not sure what SoHa has to do with anything (and I’m pretty sure this is a made up controversy anyways). This article was specifically written to get a rise out of people, and it looked like it worked.
Wrong.
The UWS…especially in the last decade and half tends to be UMC and heavily White with a lot of highly paid professionals living there. Some recent reports have stated the real estate prices to rent/buy at market rate now rival those of the most expensive parts of the UES…and that’s REALLY SAYING SOMETHING.
What’s more weird and galling is that being familiar with the UWS, I know for a fact ice cream trucks do exactly the same thing there. They certainly do in my UMC neighborhood…and within a couple of blocks of the local precinct no less. And yet, no apparent enforcement action has been taken to getting them to stop*.
It’d be no different than if say…an UESider decided to move to a rural farming community and started filing complaints about crowing roosters or noise made by farmers plowing their farms or clueless folks moving to areas of Austin, Texas known for their live musical venues and then complaining about the noise to the point several such venues which had been longtime institutions were forced to close.
In both cases, those recent transplants aren’t likely to be very popular with longtime locals who are familiar with the neighborhood/area cultural context and issues and don’t appreciate recent transplants attempting to remake their neighborhood/areas in the image of the places they’ve left.
- Wouldn't be surprised if the reasons for this is the large presence of families with young children and others who regard those trucks as a reminder of happy childhood times more than counteracts those who regard them as a nuisance.
Actually, it’s very relevant considering there was a very recent controversy regarding NYC real estate agents attempting to market Harlem real estate by dubbing the area “Soha” and considering the story in the OP is considered another symptom of the negative effects of gentrification brought in by recent transplants like the complainer:
And several HS classmates…including some from well-off NYC areas like the UWS and Park Slope not only lack sympathy with that complainer…but say she should seriously consider moving to the suburbs if an ice cream jingle in the early eveninig hours before 10 pm is so bothersome.
An ice cream jingle non-stop for over an hour loud enough to be heard clearly and obtrusively inside one’s apartment is quite different from the sounds of a Mr. Softee driving by. So the people where you live choose to just accept it? Maybe they shouldn’t.
Two years ago I had a house being built in the woods behind us at the same time that road construction, including some blasting and endless beep beep beep from equipment being operated in reverse was going on in front of us. Let me tell you, there is a big difference between hearing the occasional beeping, and hearing that beeping continuously for half an hour at a time. Summer and open window season here is brief enough. It was awful.
UES couple moves to farm country? Wait, wasn’t there a TV show about that? 
Not only do most neighbors accept it, but embrace it as a reminder of happy childhoods in the summertime. Hence, not an issue.
Moreover, there’s far louder noises that come with living in the city such as the everpresent loud siren from police/fire/emergency vehicles going by, aircraft(news/police helicopters with some airliners), honking horns, live musical concerts(There’s a live outdoor musical venue a quarter mile from me and yes…I can sometimes hear what’s being played even this far out…though considering it only takes place in the afternoons/early evenings…not an issue*), subway trains going by underground a block away(sometimes I can even feel the vibrations), etc.
However, most of us NYkers take that as a minor price to pay for living in one of the greatest cities in the world.
- Even if it's annoying boy band targeting teeny boppers, it's low enough that I just play random musical selection du jour at 75% volume on my stereo/computer speakers and its taken care of. No need to crack it up to 11 or to crank my puny 15 watt solid state** electric guitar amps to 11(Heck, even 4-5 would be waay excessive for this issue.
** Solid state amps tend to be far less loud perceptionwise than tube amps at the same wattage level.
SO happy I live in Maine.
I should also add that my current neighborhood is a lot quieter than what one would find in most Manhattan neighborhoods including Harlem unless one happens to live within a quarter mile of elevated subway tracks.
As someone who spent a year living less than a block away from the elevated 7 line one year during HS, let’s just say I didn’t get a decent night’s sleep until my we moved out a year later.
The noise was so bad even after 10 pm/midnight hours that a parked ice cream truck playing that jingle at even twice the normal volume would have been completely drowned out.
I lived for three years next to the LIRR tracks in Queens. The racket during rush hour was unbelievable. But like anything else I got used to it and could sleep through the noise.
Heh. I forgot to mention I live within a quarter mile of LIRR tracks and slept overnight a few times with a HS classmate whose apartment was literally right next to those tracks.
The LIRR trains have nothing on the elevated subways in the noise department.
I once lived near DFW airport. The jet engines flew right over my apartment at all times of the day. My bf at the time (now my DH) once exclaimed to me over the phone “Oh my GOD! How can you stand that all the time!” Confused, I asked “Stand what?” I hadn’t even noticed the engine roar.
@cobrat - I beg to differ. Those LIRR trains were running at speed and included very loud diesel locomotives.
@MaineLonghorn , we are positioned so that we can–thankfully fairly faintly–hear the announcer during football games at Greely AND the racket when they have a demolition derby at the fairgrounds. And of course about half of the celebratory sports parades go by us.
Ah, country life.
There are a lot of laws in NYC, but if you live in an area like Harlem that has seen so many issues, I can understand their irritation, that suddenly Muffy (excuse me, Mackenzie), probably some upper class kid who has decided Harlem is an “in” place to live (the upper west side has been gentrified for a long, long time, it is very different than it was 40 years ago when my brother went to Columbia or even 30 years ago), and I think what people are reacting to is someone getting upset by street noise and wanting the cops to do something about it, when they have had to face real problems not all that long ago, like drug dealers shooting up the street, high levels of violent crime, bad services, you name it, and they are reacting to someone complaining about an Ice Cream truck when they likely have seen no response to real crimes, like having their apartment robber or getting mugged and told “hey, you are living here, deal with it” by the cops (and I am not making that up). NYC has all kinds of ordinances, but the other half of this is those ordinances funny enough only seem to get enforced in areas that have become well well off. Back when I lived in the Bronx (late 80’s-mid 90’s), boom box cars were a constant annoyance, they had huge subwoofers driven by literally thousand watt amplifiers (to the point they had to put these ridiculously overpowered alternators in the cars), and nothing covered them, it was like a roving earthquake. In areas like Greenwich Village, or other well off areas, they would pull the driver over, give them a large ticket and tow the car, in my neighborhood, a working class neighborhood bordering a not so nice one, if they saw that they would drive on and wouldn’t bother. When you can’t get the cops to deal with serious issues, like drug dealers, gang members and the like, how the heck would you feel seeing someone new moving into the neighborhood because it was ‘hot’, and complaining about something like an Ice Cream truck playing its music. The Mister Softee theme is pretty annoying, I will add, but I guess having lived in city areas for so long, I learned to close the windows, turn up the AC and live with it shrug.
Did summer school in the Bronx in the mid 80s. Called my mother for my weekly check in and she said “it’s lovely to hear from you, but why are you calling me while you’re having a party?” I told her I was home alone and had the windows open.
I remember the boombox wars of the 70s, before the cars. Riding the subways and just being on the street meant you were audibly assaulted in so many directions.
Maybe the difference in our experiences is that the LIRR trains I experienced in the early '90s to the present are much quieter than the ones running when you lived near them. Especially considering the LIRR did add some noise barriers/quieter newer cars in the last few decades.