Sound and the city

Every kind of noise has its own rhythm

Each cell shows what share of that category's complaints arrive in that block of the day. Commercial noise peaks in the evening, when 59% of its complaints come in. Houses of worship peak in the morning. Helicopter complaints all but stop in the evening: 4%, the lowest share on the chart.

Share of category's complaints

Source: New York City 311 Service Requests (dataset erm2-nwe9), filtered to complaint types beginning with "Noise." Time blocks use local time: morning 6 a.m. to noon, afternoon noon to 6 p.m., evening 6 p.m. to midnight, late night midnight to 6 a.m. Rows are the time a complaint was filed, not the time the noise began. "Construction, equipment" is the bare "Noise" complaint type, routed to the Department of Environmental Protection. Window: —.

Interactive noise map ↗