Not even the dead get peace from honking horns and idling buses in Washington Heights, which has led the city in overall noise complaints since last July.
“When there’s a funeral service, we hear honking. We hear buses drive by, their exhaust, their running motors,” said Jacqui Foster, who for 48 years has worshipped at the Holyrood Episcopal Church on Broadway.
Inside the church on Friday afternoon, The Post measured the noise level from the street at 79.4 decibels. Sound experts say a level of 80 decibels or higher is potentially hazardous.
It was even louder outside the church, which is near the uptown bus terminal and the George Washington Bridge.
At 4:45 p.m. Friday, the noise peaked at an earsplitting 85.4 decibels.
“On solemn occasions, the traffic, the honking, the bus motors, disrupt services,” Foster said.
Among the city’s Top 10 noisiest neighborhoods, Washington Heights leads in the amount of street noise. In the seven months from July 1, 2007, to Jan. 31, 2008, the neighborhood racked up 1,536 vehicle-noise complaints – twice the number of any other area.
The East Village is the runner-up in overall noise complaints logged by 311 operators. Many come from people annoyed by late-night clubgoers.
It’s noisiest on weekends.
Outside Coyote Ugly on First Avenue, The Post’s decibel meter hit 83.5 at 1:20 a.m. early Saturday, 10.1 decibels louder than 24 hours earlier.
The club Radio.com hit 84.6, some 9.5 decibels louder than the night before.
“If there are people complaining, tell them to stop. You live in New York, but you should probably live in the suburbs,” said Liz Houghton, 22, who grew up in the suburbs and now lives in the East Village, where she visited Coyote Ugly early Saturday.
Jay Hamilton, 37, a clubgoer from Park Slope, said, “What are we going to do – have a silent city?”
“This is New York City, man. You know what you’re getting into when you come here,” he said.
Additional reporting by Tim Perone and Bill Sanderson