New Harlem residents clash with park drummers

[Liberal_in_LA]

When I read that the drummers have been drumming in the park for DECADES I lost all sympathy for the new yuppie residents. Anyone knows... you visit a neighborhood at all hours/days of the week before moving in.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070811/ap_on_re_us/harlem_drummers

Drummers clash with new Harlem residents

African drumming is wonderful for the first four hours, but after that, it's pure, unadulterated noise. We couldn't see straight anymore," says Beth Ross, who lives in a luxury apartment building near the park. "It was like a huge boom box in the living room, the bedroom, the kitchen. You had no way to escape except to leave the apartment."

Ross's complaint is just the latest sign of conflict in Harlem, where upscale apartments and hotels are rapidly changing the face of a neighborhood long considered the heart of black culture in America.

[GreenInNC]

1. no sympathy

We have something kind of similar going on in my area. I live in a rural part of my county and we are being over run by developers building new subdivsions for people who want to live in the country. We still have working farms out here. These new residents then start to complain about the roosters and the smells. What do you expect when you move in next to a farm?

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. I remember a case when UPS or FedEX or similar moved out to a deserted area

The company had experienced the complaints of neighbors about the noise from a nonstop stream of trucks starting at 4am so they found a deserted area to build a distribution center. Soon development came to the area and homes were built near the distribution center. And then the complaints came too.

[Wcross]

6. People NEVER question what those long silver buildings are!

We had a homeowner campaigning to shut down a chicken operation upwind from her new "country estate". The barns had been there for decades and she thought the farmer should give up his income for her sense of smell. I don't believe she still lives there............

[GreenInNC]

10. summer time is the best

We just had three days of 100+ degree weather with 70% humidity, I bet those manure piles are just ripe!

[Wcross]

11. You can smell 'em.

It is also ripe when they spread it on the hay too! I would rather smell chicken shit than exhuast fumes in the city any day of the week though.

[Coexist]

9. around here the new yuppies insist on huge, friggin' speed bumps

on every rural road leading to their subdivision. It is very irritating. If they didn't want to live at the end of a long, empty road, one which people might drive a little fast to get to the end of, they shouldn't have moved there.

[Warren DeMontague]

22. I don't know about where you are, but here we have "right to farm" ordinances.

They address those very issues. One small place where the developer crowd has had to accommodate existing reality.

[alarimer]

3. I am not terribly sympathetic either

Yuppies like that are driving poor people out of formerly affordable places all over the country. Yes, they are improving some of the old, worn-down buildings but at what cost?

They can always live somewhere else.

[knowledgeispwr]

4. They should have thought about that before they moved there

:eyes:

[Liberal_in_LA]

12. Yup. My thought exactly.

[pagerbear]

5. Like moving beside an airport and complaining about the noise.

[bridgit]

7. It is happening across many boundaries: S.F.'s Castro district faces an identity crisis...

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/25/MNG2DOATDK1.DTL

Harlem's Mart 125: The American Dream

[AlCzervik]

8. sound proof your converted brownstone or whatever you live in and quit bitching.

[ldf]

13. and I would have 311 on speed dial

i bet you anything the majority of the residents are sick of it, but are afraid to say anything.

NYC is trying to address quality of life issues, and this is one of them.

hopefully, if enough people complain, something will be done.

this is one time i'm glad the money will win out. people who are paying 3000 a month aren't going to put up with it. and that type of construction is what is going up. they are real big on building "luxury" apartments. if "luxury" is in the description, tack on an extra thousand montly rent.

this is new york. the neighborhoods change. get used to it.

[alarimer]

14. The drummers were there first

It seems like the people who move in later are the ones that should adapt. And money should not always win out. Rich Yuppie assholes already force people out of their homes just by raising the property values so high that the natives cannot afford to live in their own hometowns. Fuck those Yuppies. They can go straight to hell.

[ComerPerro]

15. amusing post to read on a progressive discussion board

[malaise]

16. Not really

Just sad.

[Madspirit]

17. Roncos Amazing Crap-O-Matic

Move the fucking Yuppies out. The drummers were there first.
Lee

[ComerPerro]

18. if it were the other way around I could understand the yuppies point

I mean, really....

some people, though...

:shrug:

[Madspirit]

26. Exactly.

If the yuppies had been there first and then a bunch of drummers moved in, I would side with the Yuppies.

...but the drummers were there first and are part of the community.

Lee

[Az]

19. Get used to it

Sage advice. The trick is who needs to heed it.

People make a community. And most people are not afraid of drummers. The drummers are part of the community and part of the identity of the particular community. They constitute part of the environment of the community the new people moved into. May as well howl at the wind. Get used to it.

[Posteritatis]

25. Frightened into silence for forty years? Right. (nt)

[Jed Dilligan]

28. "Quality of life" laws are war by the rich against the poor,

their proponents deserve to be drowned in the shit and piss of homeless people IMHO.

[Me.]

29. On This One Point I Will Beg To Differ

During Guiliani's reign of terror, contractors and builders were allowed to do whatever they liked whenever they liked. Pay an extra 50 cents and they could start work at seven in the morning and continue until seven at night. Jackhammers, men shouting. so much noise you couldn't hear anything else all day it was hell. 311 is a blessing in many ways, no heat, no hot water, dial 311. And they do follow ups. Problems the police would simply ignore now can be addressed.

The building has been constant because the developers made/make so much on tax breaks and subsidies it's almost like the premier grade of welfare. If you look closely, you'll see that many of the buildings, like the ones Trump keeps building on the far west side are only partially filled. I would love to know how many apts. are sitting around empty these days.

As for the drummers, they were there first, they should stay. It is Harlem after all. I wonder how many of these yuppies will be staying anyway. Many of them paid way too much for their places and I wonder if they'll be able to hold on.

[Jed Dilligan]

30. Don't claim to know (or particularly care) about NY

In CA "quality of life" is code for denying constitutional rights to the underclass.

[SeattleGirl]

20. Too bad for you, folks. Drummers were there first.

Wear earplugs, or better yet, LISTEN to the music. You might expand your horizons a bit.

[VP505]

23. Simple answer

is to upgrade to double or triple pane insulated windows that block about 99.9% of the outside noise. They drum, you don't hear and everyone is happy!

[SeattleGirl]

24. Excellent idea.

:thumbsup:

[Occulus]

33. One-word quibble: walls.

They, too, will conduct the sound.

Soundproofing is the answer, but how expensive is it?

(My gut feeling is, these yuppies can afford the expense.)

[Warren DeMontague]

21. "I can barely hear the new Celine Dion CD over that infernal racket!"

"Skip, go out there and maaaaaaaaaake them stoopppppppppp!!!"

[Occulus]

34. Solution: headphones.

These people could afford the highest Bose models if they wanted to make the effort.

For that matter, so could I. These people are like the idiots who complain about the noise from a college football stadium AFTER they move in next to said stadium.

I have a maddening urge to go there and organize the whole lot of drummers into continuous eights for an hour. Drummers- particularly those who were in a marching band's drumline (see my post below for a bit more)- will know what I'm talking about.

Eights, for an hour, as a protest. Noisy.

(Eight beats on the right hand, followed by eight on the left, repeat once, downbeat on the right hand, followed by three beat of establishment for tempo by the "center snare", and then repeat.

For an hour. ALL OF THEM.)

[coco77]

27. I guess they wouldn't mind if..

it was opera or some music that didn't use drums...

[burrowowl]

31. This is like Yuppies who

move into rural areas in Albuquerque and then bitch about lowing, hinnying or baaing of the animals that belong there and to boot want to tell natives to build 'Southwestern' fences and put up green electric luminarios at Cristmas and grow bermuda grass in the richest farm land in the area! I have nothing but contempt for them and may their MacMansions develope ugly unreparable cracks!

[Occulus]

32. The drummers should raise some funding

and, next summer, get one of the DCI corps drumlines to come in and give a clinic.

I hear the Cadets' drumline has been very powerful in recent years. In the early '90s, it was the Cavaliers, whose drumlines for several years were considered the best in the world.

Yes, they are each loud as shit. Like, feel the vibrations up on the fourth floor, loud as shit.

Fuck these yuppies. They deserve to be pwn3d.

[qdemn7]

35. Tough shit yuppies

You don't like your neighbors, employ that old "market" strategy and buy them out. Otherwise, piss off. :mad:

Of course, and this is going to get me into trouble, the exact same thing applies to http://bluestarchronicles.com/2007/04/09/elizabeth-edwards-snubs-republican-neighbor/"> Elizabeth Edwards.