NYC noise complaints climbed 11.2% in four weeks, and three boroughs drove it

New Yorkers filed 69,153 noise complaints with 311 in the four weeks from Aug. 22 to Sept. 19. In the four weeks before that, July 25 to Aug. 22, the count was 62,191. The difference is 6,962 complaints, an increase of 11.2%.

The figures come from the city’s 311 Service Requests data, covering both 28-day windows. One row is one complaint somebody filed. It is not a confirmed violation and not a decibel reading, so the numbers below describe what people reported, not how loud any block actually was.

Which boroughs filed the most noise complaints

Brooklyn filed the most, and by a wide margin. The Bronx came second on volume even though its count fell. Here is the ranking for Aug. 22 to Sept. 19, with the change from the previous four weeks:

• Brooklyn: 20,977 complaints, up 3,326, a rise of 18.8%
• Bronx: 16,585 complaints, down 911, a drop of 5.2%
• Queens: 15,060 complaints, up 2,234, a rise of 17.4%
• Manhattan: 14,851 complaints, up 2,441, a rise of 19.7%
• Staten Island: 1,679 complaints, down 127, a drop of 7%

Manhattan posted the steepest percentage increase at 19.7%, just ahead of Brooklyn at 18.8% and Queens at 17.4%. The Bronx and Staten Island were the only two boroughs where reports went down. One complaint in the current window and two in the previous one had no borough recorded at all, which means the field was left blank rather than that the call came from nowhere.

Loud music and parties lead the list by far

The single biggest category is the one most residents would guess. Loud Music/Party accounted for 41,227 complaints in the four weeks to Sept. 19, up 4,146 from 37,081, a rise of 11.2%. That is the same percentage increase as the citywide total, so the category grew roughly in step with everything else rather than pulling the total up on its own.

Banging/Pounding came second with 10,656 complaints, up 337 or 3.3%. Loud Talking followed with 6,212, up 798 or 14.7%. Car/Truck Music sat at 2,563, up 40 or 1.6%, the flattest of the large categories.

The complaint types rising fastest

The fastest growth sits in the smaller categories, where a few hundred extra reports move the percentage a long way. Boat noise rose 70.1%, from 107 complaints to 182. The catch-all Other category rose 56.5%, from 193 to 302.

Construction complaints rose 44.6%, from 1,346 to 1,946, and Construction Equipment rose 34%, from 462 to 619. Jackhammer reports were steadier at 182, up 23 or 14.5%. Dog complaints rose 41.6%, from 450 to 637, and Air Conditioner/Ventilation rose 25.9%, from 343 to 432.

On the street side, Car/Truck Horn complaints reached 1,779, up 253 or 16.6%, and Engine Idling reached 892, up 134 or 17.7%. Alarms rose 10.5% to 528, and Loud Television, the quietest category in the set, rose 5.7% to 445.

Community boards where the complaints cluster

311 records a community board for most complaints, written as a number and a borough. Community board 12 in Manhattan logged the most of any board, 3,338 complaints, up 115 or 3.6%. Board 05 in the Bronx was second at 2,418, and it fell harder than any other board on the list, down 906 complaints or 27.3%.

Board 04 in the Bronx logged 2,314, up 2.6%. Board 01 in Brooklyn logged 2,064, up 293 or 16.5%. Board 08 in Queens logged 1,910, up 229 or 13.6%.

The sharpest rises among the busiest boards were in Brooklyn. Board 17 there went from 1,149 complaints to 1,694, up 545 or 47.4%, the biggest jump on the list. Board 08 in Brooklyn went from 1,141 to 1,628, up 487 or 42.7%. Board 03 in Manhattan rose 22.5% to 1,706, and board 10 in Manhattan rose 19.4% to 1,620.

Three Bronx boards moved the other way: 05 down 27.3%, 09 down 170 complaints or 9.6% to 1,596, and 03 down 124 or 6.3% to 1,830. If you are not sure which board covers your blocks, our neighborhood pages are a starting point for working out where your area sits.

How New Yorkers filed the reports

Most of these complaints never involved a phone call. Online submissions accounted for 43,087 of them and the mobile app for 17,784. Phone calls accounted for 8,282.

The data gives no previous-period figures for the three channels, so there is no way to say from this set whether the mix shifted between the two windows. It only shows how the current batch arrived.

What this 311 data can and cannot show

Every figure here counts reports. A complaint records that someone picked up a phone or filled in a form, and nothing more. It does not establish that a violation occurred, that an inspector agreed, or that a measurement was ever taken.

That matters most when comparing boroughs. A higher count can mean more noise, more people who know how to file, more people willing to, or denser blocks where one sound source reaches more windows. The Bronx recorded fewer complaints than the previous four weeks; that is a change in reporting, not evidence that the borough got quieter.

The set also carries no time-of-day field, so nothing in these numbers separates a 2 p.m. jackhammer from a 2 a.m. party. Blank borough and community board entries mean the field was not filled in.

What to do with the numbers

The practical use is local. Find your community board in the list above and look at its direction rather than its raw size, because a board with more residents will almost always log more complaints. A board up 47.4% is seeing a real change in how often neighbors file, whatever is behind it.

If you want your own block represented in the next four weeks of data, the filing channel matters less than the filing. Online and app submissions together made up the large majority of the 69,153 complaints in this window, and each one becomes a row with a category, a borough and a board attached. Choosing the descriptor that actually matches what you are hearing, whether that is Banging/Pounding, Engine Idling or Air Conditioner/Ventilation, is what keeps the categories above meaningful.

Sources

Every figure above comes from these official sources, checked on the day this was written.

• NYC Open Data: 311 service requests
• NYC 311