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Also, in some of these older buildings that you would expect to be quite soundproof, many times alterations have taken place at a later time to carve up big apartments into smaller ones. You may find that you have thinner, more modern walls than the original construction.
I've been living in a beautiful, HUGE apartment in Midwood, Brooklyn for 2.5 years, and it has been a very frustrating experience as far as the noise from upstairs is concerned. At only $1,200 a month, this apartment is big enough to play soccer, it's only a 35-minute train ride to Manhattan, and there is no noise coming from the street whatsoever (though the neighborhood itself is very noisy), so I originally thought it was a godsend, until I discovered how awful the ceiling isolation was.
Part of the problem with blue-collar neighborhoods in Brooklyn (and perhaps with NYC generally) is that people who can't afford a whole apartment, especially recent immigrants or those who don't have the legal paperwork to be on a lease get crammed into apartments that were intended for only one person or perhaps a couple. Right now I have four adults living in the 1-bedroom above me, all with different schedules. Two of them live in the bedroom, and the other two in the living room, and it really sucks. One wakes up at 5:30am, the next one at 7:30am, etc, and I NEVER get to sleep. I can hear conversations, footsteps, drawers opening, and everything else.
I have decided to move to Manhattan by the end of December and feel that the safest choice for me would be a top-floor apartment in an elevator building. Walk-ups are a lot more affordable (plenty of 1-bedrooms under $2,500 in decent neighborhoods), but I am scared of being trapped in a noise box again. Ideally, I would like to find the same kind building I am in right now--a 55 unit, five-story, red brick elevator building with no doorman that was built around 1955, but I am not sure they have buildings like this in Manhattan.
Looking for a top-floor apartment is making my search a lot more difficult, because there isn't that much on the market in my price range to begin with, and I don't want to live too far East or West. In case I have to move into a second or third floor walk-up apartment, how do walk-ups (pre- or post-war) compare to elevator buildings in terms of noise?
how do walk-ups (pre- or post-war) compare to elevator buildings in terms of noise?
Elevators and staircases do not contribute to the surrounding decibel factor. You can be in a noisy or quiet walk-up. You can be in a noisy or quiet elevator building.
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