![]() ![]() apartment overlooks the bar’s backyard.Īt the Boxcar on Saturday night, the crowd seemed mellow. “I know that there’s been complaints from neighbors, but it doesn’t bother me,” said Andrew Goldman, whose E. Not every neighbor is bothered by noise from the Boxcar Lounge. When it comes to noise levels, the Boxcar is the worst, he said. But Gnocco and the Life Café are restaurants, so it’s a different level of noise, said Edwards. Gnocco, an Italian restaurant on E 10th St., and the Life Café also have backyard seating in the same courtyard. The Boxcar isn’t the only business that has an outdoor garden in the courtyard between E. and this week it is upgrading the soundproofing materials along the fence in the garden, he said. The bar recently hired someone to monitor the backyard after 10 p.m. “We want to reach out and deal with this problem,” said Spingola, who lives on E. The bar used to have metal chairs in the garden, but they were replaced with plastic ones so they wouldn’t be as noisy. on weekends and midnight on weekdays, he said. Aside from picking up chairs and sweeping, no one is allowed in the backyard garden after 1 a.m. ![]() “I strictly enforce our closing times,” he said. “Maybe she heard other people in their gardens and she’s blaming us,” said Spingola in response. “The night of the community board meeting, they were out there until 3 a.m.,” she said. “They turn the lights off when they close the backyard, but people still go back there to smoke,” Fromberg said. So she plays a tape of a stream at top volume to help drown out the “screeching, whooping, shouting and screaming,” Fromberg said. An obstetrician, Fromberg can’t wear earplugs to bed or take sleeping pills in case she gets a work-related phone call. “But when you get 32 people in a space that size, everyone starts talking louder and louder. “It sounds like a frat boy bar, but it’s pretty nice inside,” Edwards said. Except for the dead of winter, when the Boxcar’s garden is closed, Edwards sleeps wearing earplugs, with the windows shut and the air conditioner on.Īt Spingola’s invitation, Edwards visited the Boxcar for the first time two weekends ago. Edwards, 49, lives in the co-op with his wife and 6-year-old son. “I noticed this year that it’s been much louder than last year - I don’t know why,” said Michael Edwards, the president of Glass’s co-op. But the rules of the co-op only allow them to sublet three years out of 10, so they had to move back last year, Glass said. So when her husband, a graphic novelist, was offered a job in Los Angeles, the family sublet their apartment from January 2001 until January 2004. ![]() Depending on the weather, the backyard is open from April to November, Spingola said.ĭespite the established backyard curfew, the noise continued to bother Glass. Following that meeting, the bar’s owners agreed to close the Boxcar’s backyard at midnight during the week and at 1 a.m. The first time Glass and her neighbors complained about the bar to the community board was in 2000. 3 for their full liquor license two years ago, he said. However, the bar had no problems getting approval from C.B. He was not as involved in the business at that time, Spingola said. John Spingola, one of the bar’s owners, could not confirm or deny Ramaci’s statement. 3 that they would be using the backyard, said Lisa Ramaci, who was chairperson of the S.L.A. When the Boxcar’s owners first applied for their beer and wine liquor license in 1998, they never told C.B. But ultimately it’s still very noisy,” Glass said. “For the first time ever, they’re trying to keep the noise down. Glass admitted the noise level in the Boxcar garden started to decease the week following the May 23 meeting. Committee chairperson, Edward Kelly and Commissioner Emily Lloyd, head of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection. 3’s district manager, with copies to City Councilmember Margarita Lopez Lieutenant Cawley of the Ninth Precinct C.B. Glass plans to give the petitions to Susan Stetzer, C.B. In preparation for this month’s meeting, Glass has collected 31 petition signatures from other neighbors who share the courtyard with Boxcar asking for an earlier closing time for the backyard garden and decreased seating. On June 20, they will follow up at the next committee meeting regarding their complaints. Glass and eight other neighbors took their complaints against the Boxcar Lounge to Community Board 3’s State Liquor Authority and Economic Development Committee meeting on May 23. Every room in their apartment faces the backyard. Her husband, Kyle Baker, first purchased the co-op 20 years ago. with her husband and three children, ages 6, 4 and 18 months. A 36-year-old, stay-at-home mom, Glass lives in a two-bedroom co-op on E 11th St. ![]()
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