UPDATE: Friday, April 18 at 7:15 p.m.: A couple hours after West Side Rag published our story Friday on the mysterious and “annoying” nonstop ringing sound on 91st Street between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive that had lasted for at least seven days, the source of the noise was identified and vanquished.
“I wandered for a minute trying to find the source then quiet! The noise was gone!” Upper West Sider Michael Kroll emailed West Side Rag. “Myself, a woman, and the NYPD captain outside erupted into cheers.”
Multiple other residents of the Upper West Side block confirmed to the Rag that the noise was gone as of around 6:30 p.m. on Friday.
The culprit appears to have been a smoke detector within an empty apartment in a building on the north side of 91st street between West End and Riverside, which is directly across from the former Ideal School of Manhattan building that residents initially thought the noise was coming from.
After help from neighbors in identifying the location of the noise, police were able to enter the apartment and disconnect the alarm.
The discovery of the source of the noise also came shortly after Councilmember Gale Brewer’s office reached out to multiple city agencies about the issue, including the commanding officer of the Upper West Side’s 24th Precinct.
Original Story
By Gus Saltonstall
A mystery is afoot on one Upper West Side block.
For at least the last seven days, there has been a nonstop, high-pitched ringing sound on 91st Street between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive, according to multiple residents, doormen, and our own ears on Friday morning.
“There’s been a constant high-pitched ringing noise on West 91st Street between West End and Riverside,” local resident Gus Tate wrote to West Side Rag earlier this week. “It is extremely annoying.”
The unexplained noise has prompted residents of the block to put up signs throughout the street.
Others signs include a QR code that bring you to a WhatsApp group called, “Help Stop The Ringing,” where a message prompts people to share any leads they might have on where the sound is coming from.
WSR visited the 91st Street block on Friday and was quickly met with the ringing noise. As indicated by the signs, the noise is seemingly impossible to pinpoint on the street, but does seem to get louder at the halfway point between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive.
Here is what it sounds like:
“I’ve noticed it since Monday,” a doorman at 190 West 91st Street told the Rag on Friday. “I’ve been able to basically ignore it but I know people are upset about it. People thought it was the old school building but it’s not.”
Other locals who emailed the Rag also mentioned that the noise seemed the loudest in front of 314 West 91st Street, which is the former location of The Ideal School of Manhattan. The school has since relocated, but whoever still oversees the building clearly did not want to be blamed for the noise, as they put up a sign on its door on Thursday — “There is no beeping coming from this location.”
“I’ve heard the ringing since last Friday,” a doorman at 186 Riverside Drive told the Rag. “FDNY and police have come multiple times to check buildings on the block but have found nothing. Residents are complaining every day about it. It’s no good.”
On Friday, the noise did seem at its loudest on the block near the old Ideal School of Manhattan building, but it was unclear which side of the street had the louder ringing sound.
The doorman at 186 Riverside Drive also mentioned that some residents speculated that the ringing could be related to a lamppost on the south side of the block near 314 West 91st Street.
WSR reached out to Councilmember Gale Brewer’s office, which told us that Brewer had reached out to FDNY, NYPD and DOT about the issue and “will stay on it until it’s resolved.”
Brewer’s office added that DOT employees had indeed visited the Upper West Side block, but were also unable to identify the source of the sound, which most likely means that the ringing noise is not coming from the lamppost or any other piece of streetscape infrastructure.
The Rag also requested comment from New York City’s Department of Transportation and the Department of Environmental Protection, the latter of which is the city agency that oversees noise complaints, and will update this story when we hear back.
For now, the mystery remains.
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Maybe there’s a tinnitus epidemic on that block.
not a joke for those who have t.
Ouch – thanks for the audio clip. What a misery!! Hope the phenomenon can be explained. This kind of noise pollution is important to fight. Any audio engineers in the readership??
HOORAY for update!! Based on comment below, can similar assistance be offered on Manhattan Ave between 102nd and 103?? Can any neighbors help? Thanks for the follow up WSR, Mr. Kroll, and other readers, Councilmember Brewer and NYPD.
Yes! I have heard a similar annoying sound in that exact spot while heading toward the subway entrance on 103rd! I have always wondered what it is…
Who on the block just got a new HVAC unit installed?
is this the Cuban gov’t again like they did at the Embassy?
That’s what I thought, you’re being microwaved or some scientific experiment or high 5G wifi . See if cancer rates skyrocket.
I’ve actually been thinking of buying RFID material and making blackout curtains to block the 5G WiFi from across the street. My apt has a constant buzz that goes away when I leave the area.
Sounds like an industrial fan that has gone bad,
Con Edison utilizes exhaust fans in transformer ventilation systems. There may be a transformer vault in the area. Could be blocks away depending on the reflection of sound.
The audio clip, on my system, sounds more like a low-pitched throbbing than a high-pitched ringing. Perhaps my Fi is insufficiently Hi.
Anyhow, 314 West 91st is also the former home, 1969–91, of the Sullivan Institute for Research in Psychoanalysis (AKA the Sullivanians) and the cult’s late misleader, Saul Newton. Is this his final, belated affront to society?
Fred Newman was worse.
We must assert ourselves to stop the alarm issue in general. Way too much noise.
The same tone is plaguing the block on Manhattan Avenue between 102nd and 103rd Streets. It’s been ringing for months! I googled and learned it might be a rodent deterrent. Unacceptable noise pollution indeed. Make it stop!
Electronic rodent deterrents emit high-frequency sound waves that humans cannot hear
This noise sounds like a human deterrent
It took a week to figure this out? Doesn’t anybody else live in that building that would have heard the alarm?
Thank you to the officer that entered the apartment and stopped the noise.
Alarming, isn’t it?
Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.
Don’t do that.
Don’t do what?? Lovely reference.
It tolls for thee and for me.
What a great battery that smoke detector utilized.
This has been happening on west 95th between Broadway and Amsterdam for months. Police, 311, no one can seem to fix it.
I can imagine how annoying that was. At least 3-4 times a year (usually in the sprng and summer time when we keep our windows open) an apartment with a terrace has an alarm that for whatever reason goes off until the people come home to turn it off. They obviously go away on the weekends and it usually starts on a Friday night and keeps going up till Monday when they return. I won’t give out the address, but they are on 80th street and as I said, it seems to happen 3-4 times a year. When you see and confront them of how it bothered the entire neighborhood for days, they shrug their heads showing that they could care less. When you go to their building and tell the doorman, he calls the super who says to say there is nothing he can do. It’s been awhile since it last happened but with the nice weather approaching and our windows to soon be open at night, it’s bound to happen again soon.
How many Upper West Siders does it take to turn off a smoke detector?
Interesting. We had a high pitched buzz happening outside on west 71st Street for about a week – about a month or so ago – mostly in the evening into early morning. Was driving me crazy and never could figure out what it was. In fact, we joked that it was aliens. Anyone else hear it in this vicinity?
whenever stuff like this is updated with something to the effect of “hours after we posted something the police solved it” all it does is indicate that if someone had just gone to the precinct and said something, they wouldn’t have had to suffer – “suffer” – for seven whole days. like, you went through all the effort to put signs with QR codes up but couldn’t be bothered to take advantage of an actual community resource? maybe cops don’t do anything in the neighborhood because they don’t know about them until people complain enough for WSR to write about it. 🙄
We had the same issue last year on West 82 — and same outcome. 4 days, and it turned out to be a ceiling fire alarm whose battery was failing, in an unoccupied apartment!
Ahhh, I’m so glad I came across this story. I originally thought I was experiencing prolonged tinnitus until my husband confirmed he was hearing it too – ha!
Huh, I heard something similar this week on 89th between CPW and Columbus. When I saw the headline I assumed it was the same sound. But it must be something separate a few avenues over
I have the same problem on W. 73rd St. and Riverside Drive. This ringing sounds been going on for about 3 to 4 years now. People think it’s ringing in their ears doing it.? Can you send those experts over to 73rd and Riverside Drive and find out where this forever ringing sound is coming from?