By Alex Ginsberg
Middle Village residents must treat excessive noise as a crime and report every incident to the city's new 311 hotline if they are to preserve quality of life in their neighborhood, Juniper Park Civic Association President Bob Holden said last week.
“Bombard the system,” Holden advised the audience of about 200 Middle Village residents who attended a meeting of the association last Thursday.
Holden admitted that calling 311 to report a roaring motorcycle on Eliot Avenue or a lumbering truck on a residential street might not have any immediate effect. But he said that having the number of complaints accurately logged was the only way to get the city's attention and prove that the neighborhood has a noise problem.
He also expressed hope that calls to 311 might convince police officials to bring Operation Silent Night – the anti-noise initiative performed in Astoria last autumn – to Middle Village.
Although association members described all manner of excessive noise – from leaf blowers to loud music – Holden said the worst offenders were speeding drivers, especially motorcycle operators.
Even as he spoke inside Our Lady of Hope auditorium on Eliot Avenue, he was interrupted several times by the roars of unmuffled motorcycles.
Following the meeting, at about 9:45 p.m., a group of about eight motorcycles roared down 71st Street, just north of Eliot Avenue. The cycles appeared to be going at least 50 mph down the narrow residential street and the drivers were performing “wheelies” – driving with only the rear wheel making contact with the road.
Speeding motorcycles are not only annoying but dangerous, Holden said. He cited a June 18 accident in which a motorcyclist was killed and his passenger seriously injured in a crash with a truck.
“This sort of thing is going to happen if we don't get control of our streets,” he said.
Holden recognized that the 1999 construction of noise barriers along the Long Island Expressway was a step in the right direction for the community but said much more action was needed.
One resident, Terry Facciuto, blamed the 7-Eleven on Eliot Avenue for drawing “unfriendly elements” into the area. She said in addition to drag-racing motorcycles, the store was a hangout spot for teenagers who were often loud, littered and urinated around the parking lot.
Holden criticized the 104th Precinct, which covers Middle Village, Maspeth, Glendale and Ridgewood. On one occasion, he called 911 to report motorcycles speeding and doing wheelies only to be told his complaint did not constitute an emergency – an assertion with which he vehemently disagreed.
Officials from the 104th Precinct would not comment except to say that manpower in the precinct was stretched extremely thin and scarce resources had to be dedicated to handling emergencies.
But Holden did not accept the idea that noise complaints were not emergencies.
“We have had a number of people killed by a car or motor vehicle,” he said. “Does it matter that they weren't murdered? They're still dead.”
Reach reporter Alex Ginsberg by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 157.
