It's a nightmare over in Long Island City for residents who live near the cacophonous MTA exhaust fans that clear air from the 7 train tunnel when work's being done. And there is a lot of work to be done, now and forever—there's not even any 7 train service between Queens and Manhattan for the next billion weekends because of the repairs. People complain they can't sleep because of the fans, which sound like a jet engine before takeoff or, as the Times puts it, "a giant rattle shaken at great speeds."
Mark Christie, who lives on the 25th floor of Citylights, the first residential high rise in the neighborhood, tells the Times, "I find myself going to bed at night wondering if the fans will come on and wake me up. This unpredictability is psychologically draining, and after a while, it really gets to you."
And it's not just well-off condo dwellers who are going crazy; elderly residents at a subsidized housing complex near the fans are suffering. One weekend this month the fans ran 24 hours straight, and the super says, "I had people coming up to me crying because they couldn’t get any sleep." MTA officials say that it would cost $300,000 to muffle the noise, and they're a little short at the moment. But as a compromise, last weekend the MTA used the fans on the other side of the tunnel in Tudor City instead. We're sure everyone in that neighborhood will be patient and understanding.
