Roosevelt Islands residents have been reporting hearing extremely loud, piercing noises late at night and wondering where it was coming from.
The extremely loud piercing, screeching overnight noise that is keeping many Roosevelt Islanders from getting sleep appears to be coming from work being done in the late night and early morning hours on the Queensboro bridge.
A resident reports:
I’m trying to find out what the awful screeching sound at night is, each and every night. Sounds like it’s coming from the bridge. I can’t find any info about it but it’s driving me crazy. High pitched metallic screeching. I can’t find anything written online about it but people must be complaining somewhere. Do you know anything about it?
I asked the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT):
… Is the work on Queensboro Bridge the source of the noise? Does DOT have any comment on this matter and projection when it will end?
A DOT spokesperson replied on April 24:
The work you described involves the removal of the underdeck shield since upper deck roadway replacement is now complete.
This works needs to be done overnight because of lane closures.
A bulletin will be shared with the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp to disseminate to the community about this phase of the QBB 10 contract.
The metal shield was in place for several years to protect the public below and the workforce above. Its removal requires using cutting tools and other specialized equipment that can generate the type of noise being reported which is not common to NYC DOT’s normal bridge construction operations.
This work is expected to take approximately a month.