Residents of a once-tranquil block in Hell’s Kitchen are getting blasted — but there’s no ’round-the-clock party and it’s certainly no fun.
“It’s like having a fighter-jet engine across the street,” said West 53rd Street resident Melody Brooks, who lives right across the street from a sparkling new Mercedes-Benz dealership whose six massive air vents blow a gale directly into her seven-story building.
“They’re venting the building’s exhaust literally in our faces,” fumed Brooks. “They’re horrible neighbors.”
Other residents of the block off 10th Avenue can’t sleep at night and are at wits’ end during the day.
“When it’s running full-force, it’s like a roar. My bed and desk are directly across from the vent [and] it gives me a headache and makes my ears ring,” said artist Scott Cousins, who wears earplugs and wraps his head in a pillow just to get some shuteye.
Eula Williams, 60, has heart problems, and the vents are making her a nervous wreck.
“I can’t hear the television in the daytime. To have a phone conversation, I usually go into the bathroom,” she groused. “I can’t open the windows. If I do, the noise is so overwhelming, I can’t do anything.”
Second-floor resident Douglas Elliott said the showroom lights glare through his windows all night.
“It’s constant white noise, and the showroom lights are very, very bright,” he said.
Actor Stephen Malloy, 48, takes the full sonic brunt.
“I live on the side that’s facing the air vents. It’s incredibly irritating and annoying,” he said, adding that the vents often remain on all night. “It’s an overwhelming sound. It sounds like a vacuum cleaner in a wind tunnel.”
After weeks of complaints to 311, the city found that the noise exceeded legal levels.
And now Mercedes is scrambling for a fix — but admits it may not be coming anytime soon.
“We know we were exceeding the decibel levels — we have a citation that states that,” said Blair Creed, general manager at the dealership.
“Our engineering company has put together an initial study but not a final proposal of what materials and engineering are going to be required. When that’s going to be finalized I can’t tell you.”
Creed admitted the angry neighbors have a point.
“It has made conditions less than ideal for all of you, especially those of you at eye level to the exhaust system,” he told them at a recent meeting sponsored by Community Board 4.