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Piano wars in the Fenway
By adamg on Sun, 09/29/2013 - 10:48pm
People with a yen to play the public piano on Haviland Street after 10 p.m. and people with a yen to not hear them are battling via 911 tonight. Caught in the middle are the police, whose forte is not music and who are now telling kvetchers to call the Mayor's Hotline.
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Comments
That's an easy one -- move
That's an easy one -- move the piano so it isn't outside any residential buildings.
whiney bitches
whiney bitches are people who move into a neighborhood known for a certain quality
and then bitch about that very same feature once they've settled
if you don't like music, then don't move into the Fenway
the math is pretty simple
While normally I'd agree with
While normally I'd agree with sentiments such as this, nobody moves into a building expecting a "public piano" to appear in front of their bedroom windows for anyone to bang on in the middle of the night...
Nobody expects the Spanish
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. (C'mon, I can't be the only person thinking this.)
The City is so disrespectful
The City is so disrespectful to residents. That piano is right under people's bedrooms. It is very obvious. The city is telling students it is OK to make all the noise you want - the Mayor approves. He gave you a toy to play with. You want a beer too...
Let me get this straight
You moved into The Fenway.
Now you are complaining about students.
Okay.
If someone put a public drum
If someone put a public drum set in front of your home to go to town on at 3am I think you'd be unleashing the Swirly fist of justice® upon them.
Thank you
Thank you
You don't know where I live
Did you say "public drum set"? Let's just say that I'm already privy to the HS Marching Band activities, as early as 6am, as well as early morning soccer screaming. These are exempted from public noise ordinances.
I don't demand that these activities cease ... and they are not nearly as temporary as the public pianos. I knew about the high school practice fields when I moved in, so I don't expect that soccer yelling and marching bands will not happen because I'm special and I'm in the neighborhood.
I put in ear plugs and go back to sleep ... just like I used to do when I lived in the Fenway/Kenmore area! Even in the 1980s, we heard all about how "students devalue condo property". Yeah, right ... students had been living in the area for over a century at that time, so they didn't devalue anything.
If a high school marching
If a high school marching band practicing and kids audibly having fun while playing soccer bother you, then why did you move a house in the suburbs near a school? Was a school built AFTER you moved into your house? Strange. I like hearing kids play music and have a good-natured time... I wouldn't block it out with earplugs. Try to lighten up and enjoy life a little. Try playing music or sports with your kids and then maybe you won't be so irritated by it.
well, well
You are a tedious little anontroll, now aren't you.
At least tenfortystalking has the gonads to get a consistent log in.
Anon troll does have a point.
Anon troll does have a point.
See you next Tuesday! Swirl
Sweetie-pie....is name-calling really necessary? I think you're better than that.
Ah yes
I picked up some new milk levers on my recent adventure ... and you have indeed been a very naughty boy!
Don't need a piano
Generally students can be pretty disruptive without musical instruments. The City just enables them. These frat boys really aren't so tough when you confront them.
If I lived by a prison, does
If I lived by a prison, does that mean I can't complain about criminals?
Complain all you want.
But if you buy a house next to an airport that was there for 50 years before you bought your house, you're going to have a hard time getting someone to take you seriously when you complain about aircraft noise.
Did I miss something? I don't
Did I miss something? I don't think these street pianos have been there for fifty years, have they?
Residents were here before
Residents were here before disrespectful students. In fact, 120 years ago the Fenway was a swamp, so if it is true, as you claim, these students crawled out of that no one would be surprised.
I'd give them one chance to move it
then I would disable the piano. Easily accomplished with a pair of wire cutters.
That works
On annoying cars, too. Like yours.
Such watch
I assume the police and hot line folk would note that the noise limits kick in from 11 PM to 7 AM.
Eric, the evening is over
And that damn school of music the piano is parked in front of, how dare they put that right under my bedroom windows. Music Therapy Department my sainted aunt.
How loud could it be?
From photos it looks like a spinet upright, which are about the quietest pianos. I don't know why they would choose a minimal instrument like that near a music school, or why the City chose the location they did, other than being a quieter street for hearing the piano.
As for the students, they should be more considerate of neighbors, play eg. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Satie, Debussey etc.
Or they could
move it a block in any direction, where it wouldn't face residential buildings and would have more open air to reduce echoing.
shrug.
Seems to me the problem here is solved rather simply, not unlike that of a momentarily aggressive Brookline turkey. Unwanted noise at night, the knowledge the police aren't coming as they have decided it is "somebody else's" problem, and confidence that there still seem to be plenty of folks in the Fenway who haven't looked around at the ongoing changes in the neighborhood.
For street piano questions or
For street piano questions or concerns (including noise complaints), e-mail [email protected] or call 617-598-3219.
well
i was working when the 911 calls for this came in and i have to admit, it does put the police in a weird position. it is not illegal to play a piano that was put out for residents to use. But at the same time it is probably not great for the people living there.
Some pianos do have covers that fold over the keys and presumably can be locked. but then whose job would it be to go around locking pianos??
must say, this whole plan could have been better thought out but they won't be there forever so some people need to quit their complaining
Sorry, but...
Anyone complaining about music on Haviland Street...sheesh--did they get the memo? That whole neighborhood is nothing but music students practicing at all hours. Of all the neighborhoods in Boston--honestly, it's ridiculous to complain. Incidentally I stopped on Sunday to listen to a young man play this very piano on Saturday afternoon--he played for at least twenty minutes, joyously, improvising, clearly having a blast. Every time I've passed one of these pianos, someone is playing them and it's really quite wonderful. The benefits so clearly outweigh the occasional inconvenience.
correction
the piano is in a public space, a mini-park, which is directly across from another larger park and next to a school which is closed at night, and behind a block of commercial buildings, and there are six, count them, six residences across the alley (and for that matter across the mini-park, given the placement of said piano) from the location of the instrument, which isn't very loud in the first place
they're still whiny bitches in my book