Page 20 - New York Cooperator January 2019

20 THE COOPERATOR — JANUARY 2019 COOPERATOR.COM MAINTENANCE D o you remember when you were a kid that the closest thing you had to a cell phone at the time was two cups with a string tautly attached between them, and then speaking into one cup to see if your friend holding the other could hear you? That long-ago game worked because sound travels along rigid pathways. If you let the string between the cups go slack, the sound doesn’t trav- el. That’s all you really need to know to understand soundproofing – and you had already learned it in kindergarten. The ABC’s of Sound – and Soundproofing Sarah Marsh, President of MAAI Marsh Architects in New York City, says: “There’s no such thing as soundproofing; rather the proper term is sound attenu- ation.” Sound attenuation is the effective reduction of sound – not necessarily its elimination. Michele Boddewyn and Alan Gaynor, President and Founding Principal respec- tively of the Manhattan firm Boddewyn Gaynor Architects, explain that noise in multifamily buildings can be broadly di- vided between two general categories: airborne noise and structural noise. Air- borne noise filters in from adjacent units and outside. It includes things such as music from a stereo, raised voices, or the rumble of the garbage truck at 6:30 on a Saturday morning. Structural noise has to do with reverberations that come through the actual building structure – so the re- viled ‘footfalls’ of your upstairs neighbor’s children and her high-heeled shoes clack- ing against the floor at the same time ev- ery day count as structural noise. Solutions for these different types of noise vary in approach. In reality, the underlying science behind the solutions is pretty much always the same: relax the string. An Unintentional History Urban multifamily housing can be pretty much divided into three categories as far as sound is concerned. The first pe- riod stretches from World War I through the pre-World War II construction boom, and then on to the mid-1960s, when construction methods began to change for both economical and technological reasons. The second period covers the years from the late 1960s and early 1970s through the early 1990s. The third period begins in the 1990s and brings us to the present. Older buildings (often referred as pre- war) were heavier, built with more layers and solid materials. “Sound was less of an issue before World War II,” says Bod- dewyn. And adds Gaynor: “They had plaster walls and used gypsum block, and Soundproofing Multifamily Silence Technology BY A J SIDRANSKY 675 Third Ave. New York, NY 10017 212-370-9200 ellimanpm.com info@ellimanpm.com • 100+ Years • 375 Buildings • 1000s of Satisfied Owners, Residents and Boards • Energy Auctions for the best fuel rates • Master Insurance discounts • Volume purchasing to reduce building costs • Leader in technology and compliance tracking Call us today to see what we can do for your building. We May Be As Old As The Woolworth Building But We’re As Modern As 111 Murray Street (and we manage both) ISTOCKPHOTO.COM