2 Neighboring Examples of Gowanus’s Return Clash Over Noise

Uli Seit for The New York Times Elise Long, an owner of the Gowanus Arts Building, on the roof of the building, with the Fairfield Inn & Suites behind her. The hotel and the arts building are in a conflict over noise.

The Gowanus Arts Building and the Fairfield Inn & Suites, neighbors in a fast-changing industrial corner of Brooklyn, are separated by only the hotel’s parking lot.

The arts center, a former soap factory now filled with rehearsal space for dancers and musicians and studios for artists, was one ofthe first signs of the Gowanus neighborhood’s comeback when it opened in 1985, a time when the zone between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens was a no man’s land ridden with drugs, prostitution and other crime. The Fairfield, a sleek 12-story Marriott hotel that opened in 2011, one of about a half-dozen hotels to open in the last few years, is one of the newest.

But lately in Gowanus, the two generations are not getting along so well.

Management at the Fairfield has been complaining about late-night drumming at the arts building. The inn’s guests, according to the hotel, have said they are unable to sleep through noise that rings out as late as 2 a.m.

“Many of our corporate guests are here on business and usually have an early start to their day,” the Fairfield’s general manager, Darren Piercey, wrote in an e-mail in January to Gabriella Denne! ry, founder of a percussion ensemble that rents space in the building. “Others are leisure travelers who travel from all over the world to experience all the excitement that is Brooklyn and N.Y.C. Unfortunately, they are unable to stay on track due to lack of sleep as a result of the constant drumming coming from the Gowanus Arts building.”

Andy Newman Guests at the Fairield Inn and Suites hotel in Brooklyn have complained about late-night drum noise from the nearby Gowanus Arts Building, the hotel management says.

People at th arts center say the late-night drumming has happened only a “handful” of times. They worry that an age-old urban pattern, where artists move into a desolate neighborhood and make it safer and more desirable, only to get pushed out by the next wave of arrivals, is playing out yet again. As the conflict has ground on, the arts center has called for a boycott of the hotel.

The Fairfield’s thinking “is very skewed, like, ‘Nothing existed until we showed up, and now we’re going to make this barren land safe for international tourists because we don’t want them to get a bad impression,” said Elise Long, a co-owner of the building whose dance company, Spoke the Hub, is one of the arts center’s original tenants.

No one associated with the hotel, which is part of Marriott International, would comment for this article.

Both buildings - the hotel fronts on busy Third Avenue, the arts center on a side street, Douglass Street â€" are in an area zoned for manufacturing. But regardless of zoning, the city’s noise code prohibits music from raising the noise level in nearby dwellings above 42 decibels, quieter than most normal conversations, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Environmental Protection said.

“The noise code applies to the entire city,” said the spokesman, Ted Timbers, “but our inspections are driven by concerns or complaints.” If someone lodges a noise complaint to 311, either his department or the police would follow up, he said.

Mr. Piercey wrote to Ms. Dennery that the inn had “begun lodging complaints with 311” and was “tracking the activity,” but a search of the city’s 311 database turned up no complaints about 295 Douglass Street, the arts center’s address, and the environmental department said it had not received any.

Uli Seit for The New York Times The band In One Wind set up for a practice session at the Gowanus Arts Building late last month.

Officials at Marshall Resorts and Hotels, which manages the hotel, did not return requests for comment. Nor did Mr. Piercey or officials of Troutbrook Development, which owns the hotel.

A Marriott document for franchiser! s [pd! f] says Fairfield Inn guests “are the most productivity-oriented of the select-service/extended stay brands” and are looking for the ability to “keep their routine intact.”

Ms. Long and one of her tenants, Scott Kettner, a drummer, say the 2 a.m. noise went on only a few times, when Mr. Kettner’s studio-mate Tim Keiper practiced late into the night. Mr. Kettner estimated that Mr. Keiper practiced until 2 a.m. four times in the past year.

“The trucks going down Third Avenue are a lot louder,” Ms. Long said. She suggested to Mr. Piercey that the Fairfield Inn pay to soundproof the Gowanus Arts Building. Mr. Piercey did not respond, she said.

The hotel and the arts center seem as if they could benefit from each other’s presence. For now, that is not happening. Lori Lahnemann, owner of the Philadelphia Dance Academy, which is scheduled to give a performance with Spoke the Hub in April, said that she had made reservations at the Fairfield for 25 dancers and 15 chaperons, but tht Ms. Long persuaded her to switch hotels.

“We definitely would have stayed there if it weren’t for the boycott,” Ms. Lahnemann said.