NYC NOW - NYC Housing Clashes and Brooklyn Children’s Museum Noise Complaints, Explained

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

WNYC and Gothamist reporter David Brand joins us to talk about a couple of the housing battles he’s covering right now, including the lawsuit challenging the Rent Guidelines Board’s rent freeze and a new fast-track process for certain affordable housing projects. Plus, WNYC and Gothamist reporter Walter Wuthmann looks at noise complaints surrounding rooftop parties at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, the concerns from nearby residents and the debate over how gentrification fits into the dispute.Photo: Walter Wuthmann/GothamistGot any questions, comments or story ideas? Send us a message at [e-mail]. Mamdani will clear 10,000 families off waitlist for low cost childcareTwo Legionnaires’ disease cases appear at a Queens housing complex. Here’s what we know.Check out our latest episode on LegionnairesNew apartments are coming and there’s nothing these 12 neighborhoods can do to stop itNo kids and a lot of bass: Brooklyn Children's Museum draws flak for loud roof partiesThe latest on rent freeze lawsuit:Lawyer challenging NYC rent freeze releases Mamdani officials’ emails and text messages Lawyer suing to block NYC rent freeze tried swaying previous board vote, ex-chair saysOther housing news:Mamdani must redo his pied-à-terre tax rollout, NY judge orders Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre. I think it was based on the fact that people were saying it was a gentification thing, and it's not a gentrification thing. It's a sound thing. It's a too damn loud thing. Some neighbors in Crown Heights are frustrated with the music coming from rooftop parties at the Children's Museum.

But this isn't your average noise complaint. Neighbors claim that the loud bass is shaking their homes. On today's show, why the Brooklyn Children's Museum is renting out its space so much, and the neighbors who have had enough. Also, WNYC and Gotham as housing reporter David Brandt will join us to recap a few housing fights brewing in New York City. But first, here are a few headlines we're keeping eyes on. The Mamdani administration will move thousands of families off a wait list for the child care assistance program, which provides low-cost child care or after-school to working families.

It's welcome news for parents who can't afford to pay out of pocket and for providers who are struggling to fill seats. Parents can check out the city's new child care map to find which programs accept the vouchers. Man, Legionaire's disease just won't go away. Two cases of the illness have popped up at a housing complex in Queens. New York City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene are investigating. Meanwhile, health officials advise older residents in the area to avoid taking showers until the investigation is complete. We recently discussed the lasting toll of Legionaire's disease with some folks directly impacted by it. If you missed it, go back a couple episodes and take a listen.

And for more on these stories, you can visit our news site, Gothamist. Quick shout out to New York Knicks Guard and Brooklyn native Jose Alvarado. The Knicks champion is taking over Knickerbocker Avenue. Only for a year, though. It's now temporarily co-named Alvarado Avenue. Pretty cool for a hometown hero, right? Now, despite GTA's quickness, there's no speeding on Elvarado Avenue. I just thought somebody somewhere needed to hear that.

All right, let's get on with the show. There's always so much housing news across New York City, and across from me in the WMYC and Gothamist Newsroom, sits housing reporter David Brand. And he's always so busy. And so I thought we'd pull David into the show today to talk about the things that he's working on because there's so much happening. From the rent guidelines board and affordable housing possibly coming to the Upper East

Side, David joins me now to talk through it all. David, what is going on out there? Well, there's a lot going on, Janay. You mentioned being desk buddies. Maybe you hear me on the phone talking about all these different topics. There's a lot going on. A lot of lawsuits, a lot of new policies, and as you mentioned, maybe some new affordable housing. Yeah, so let's start, I guess, with a name that's been in the news, been out of the news, but attorney Randy Mastrow. So what is Mastro up to these days, though?

Well, Mastrow has really taken on this role as the thorn in the side of Mayor Mamm Dani in his administration. This is something Mamm Dani has mentioned a few times. There are a few things that are more certain than death taxes and Randy Mastro suing our administration. So they're not good buddies at all. They're definitely not good buddies. You could probably say that they are nemeses right now. So just a quick summary, Randy Mastro is an attorney in private practice, but the first deputy mayor under then mayor Eric Adams. And right now he is behind two high profile lawsuits seeking to block some pretty high profile city policies.

So let's start with the first one. And that's the rent freeze that the city's rent guidelines board approved back in June. It actually took effect on October 1st for people signing new two-year leases on rent-stabilized apartments. And it's the first time the rent guidelines board ever approved a rent freeze on new two-year leases. So a group of landlords represented by Mastro sued to try to block the rent freeze from taking effect. They want the judge to order the rent guidelines board to reconvene and hold. a new vote. They say that the board, when it went through its process ahead of the vote, where it considers data, takes public testimony, they say the board ignored data showing rising owner expenses.

And so they want the judge to say, board, you have to go back to the drawing board and vote for a rent increase. So tell me about this drama that's unfolding now. Yeah, we got some T on the RGB. Okay. So Mastro and the landlords asked a judge. judge to order top city officials, including Momdani, as well as members of the Rent Guidelines Board and the Rent Guidelines Board staff, to turn over their email and text and signal and WhatsApp communications that the landlords say could show some type of collusion. So their argument is that Mamdani and other city officials were instructing the board to vote a certain way. And that created this, quote, sham process where the board was just constructed and

and went through all of this process of examining data, taking public testimony, when really they had this preordained decision to freeze the rent coming up. And so Mastro and his clients want to show that there's some kind of smoking gun, that there's an email or a text message from someone at City Hall saying, this is how you need to vote. A judge did order the city and the Rent Guidelines Board to turn over those communications. and Mastro submitted some of those communications into the court record last week. Okay, so that was last week. What do they show? Well, there's no real smoking gun here. It's kind of like one text message is Mom Dani to one of the board members that he just appointed, welcoming him to the board.

Most of the other messages and emails were arranging times for meetings or a presentation that City Hall was making. So, yeah, no smoking gun, nothing that showed like clear influence. or instructions to vote a certain way. You know, David, I'm wondering how this is all playing out on the board because I do recall one of the board members actually dropping out before that rent freeze vote, right? That's right. Her name's Christina Smith. She's a landlord's attorney and she was one of the two landlord representatives on the

board. And the morning of the board vote, she resigned her post pretty dramatically saying she didn't want to participate in this sham process. And so she said that the board all along was going to vote for a rent freeze and that this was a predetermined outcome. And her resignation was basically the foundation for this lawsuit. You know, we can never tell a timeline on a case, right? But for someone listening who lives in a rent stabilized apartment and they're wondering what's next in this lawsuit and what it means for them, what do we tell them? Yeah, that's a right. And that's what makes this so important. Like what happens to tenants in rent-stabilized

apartments? And that's an open question. You know, this is unprecedented. No judge has ever ordered the board to reconvene and vote again. The rent freeze took effect on new leases signed October 1st. So there's people out there who have signed leases already. And so what does this mean for them? You know, a lease is a contract. Would a judge's order telling the board to vote again, invalidate a lease that they've already signed. I think these are open questions and why it's so confusing and could really create chaos for a lot of tenants and a lot of landlords. Well, David, we'll certainly be following your reporting to keep an eye on things. And there's one other housing fight brewing as well. So the city just named 12 community

districts where certain affordable housing projects could get a faster path. to approval. David, can you remind us what happened here? Yeah, and let's let's talk about this in a way that, you know, a normal person can understand because I think I have a habit of slipping into this housing jargon and this like housing policy ease that can be so easy for housing people to defer to. But really, come on, you just, the way you described, it's this esoteric community district approvals for affordable housing. Okay, David, don't be so hard on you. self. He's a smart guy. But I will say listeners, if you are a New York City voter, you yourself approved this new process. You remember last year there were ballot measures on the back of the

ballot. So you weren't just voting for mayor and city council. You were also voting for the future of housing construction in New York City. And you approve this measure to speed up new housing construction in certain parts of the city. But let's step back to describe exactly how this works. Okay. So all of New York City is carved into zones, dictating what exactly can be built where. Anytime a developer wants to build an apartment building that's larger than those zoning rules allow, the developer has to go to the city to win a rezoning approval. And so that rezoning approval process is pretty long. So you apply for rezoning approval. You submit an application. It then goes through a long community review process involving the community board, the borough president, and ending in a

binding vote from the city council. Traditionally, that's given the local city council member a ton of power over what gets built where because the entire city council votes in lockstep with the local member on land use decisions in their district. And so that's made individual council members, basically the final arbiter on new housing construction decisions. This new policy is going to totally change that in these 12 sections of the city. So the Department of City planning looked at all 59 community districts in New York City

and identified the 12 that have produced the lowest rate of new affordable housing in the city over the last five years. That includes some suburban style sections of the city. Think about Bayside and Douglaston and Northeast Queens. most of Staten Island, much of South Brooklyn, Bay Ridge, Diker Heights. It also includes two of the most densely populated places in the country, the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side. So all different neighborhoods, but what they have in common is they've been producing a low rate of new affordable housing. So this new policy totally changes the timeline of review for projects that are proposed in those districts. This shortens that timeline of review for the community board and the borough president, and it totally cuts out.

the city council and instead gives final power to the city planning commission, which is controlled by the mayor. All right. So what's the outcome of that? Well, it could make it a lot easier, a lot faster and a lot cheaper for developers to build new housing in those districts because they no longer have to wait several months in this review process. And probably more importantly for them, they don't have to win the support of the council

member in order to get final approval to build what they want to build. This is known as the affordable housing fast track, but it doesn't just apply to affordable housing. It applies to any housing development proposed in those districts. But by law, any new housing project that's constructed after a rezoning has to price at least a quarter of new apartments for low and middle income renters. And so that's considered a full. affordable housing and why this is seen as a way to drive up the number of affordable housing units

and all housing units constructed in New York City. New housing is great. I mean, I thought everybody was down for it. Why is this so controversial? Well, it's controversial because it's taking away a lot of the community input and taking away the power of the city council member to not only approve or disapprove projects, but to say, I'll only approve this if you add more affordable housing than the rules allow or to try to extract other concessions from developers.

Basically, opponents of the measure say it gives private developers too much power and that it gives the mayor too much power as well. But we'll see now if the city is going to come out with more plans for some of these districts where there hasn't been a lot of affordable housing built and what the role of the council member in the community is going to be in planning and approving those. David, I do thank you so much for spending time with me here in the studio. I know you are covering so many different stories. I appreciate you breaking them all down for us.

Thanks a lot, Janay. Always happy to talk housing and, yeah, we'll put it in terms that won't make people's eyes glaze over, right? What it means to us as New Yorkers? That's WMYC and Gothamist housing reporter David Brand. To read David's full reporting on the rent guidelines board and the city's push to fast-track affordable housing and neighborhoods like the Upper East Side, visit our new site, gothamist.com. And while you're there, check out a story on the lawsuit. over the city's new Pietater tax. A Staten Island judge has already ordered the city to scrap the rollout and start all over.

You know, there are a lot of housing fights playing out all over the city. But in one Brooklyn neighborhood, folks are mad about something else. Parties, the really loud ones, the kind of face that shakes your house. In the party venue, the roof of a children's museum. We'll have that story after the break. That's the sound of a summer party in Crown Heights. Hundreds of people are on the roof of the Brooklyn Children's Museum. There's music, cocktails, and booming bass.

You hear it. The museum says renting out its space brings in vital revenue that helps pay for free services for children and families. But neighbors say some of those parties have gotten so loud that they shake their homes. And on some event days, the Children's Museum closes its doors to kids. The controversy even made it. way to late-night television with Jimmy Kimmel bringing up the situation in his monologue Friday night. But only in Brooklyn could you have trouble sleeping because the techno from the Children's Museum is too loud. There are a lot of weird things going on around here. So how did a neighborhood

institution built for children end up in a fight over adult rooftop parties? WNYC and Gothamist reporter Walter Woodman has been reporting on this story. Walter, what is going on here? So the museum rents out its rooftop for private events. And they have this roof deck. In 2017, they did a renovation that they have this big sculptural white overhang so they can do events in all weather. It's really beautiful. And they've been doing this for decades. So there are weddings, there are community events, but then there are also these very adult-themed parties. Some of the recent event names include cocaine, all-white Renaissance and Flair, NYC. Yeah. Wow, Walter. You're coming in hot here. Cocaine, all-white Renaissance?

Cocaine spelled with a K. And it was an all-white party. K as in K-O-C-A-I-N-E. So, yeah, there's a real contrast between some of these events and the host institution. And neighbors have made a lot of complaints. They're making a lot of noise themselves, which is kind of how this story came to our attention. They're not complaining about every event. They say some are barely noticeable.

They have an issue with the loudest parties that have these loud DJs and really heavy bass that's reverberating out into the neighborhood. Wow. How late are we talking here? Are these going into like two in the morning? No, not at all. They have to cut off by 10 p.m. And neighbors say that that cut off is generally respected. The problem is the kind of level of noise, that just sheer decibel volume that goes.

up all the way until 10 p.m. Yeah, yeah. Ten is pretty early. But what's it like before that, you know, if you live right there? Well, I spoke to Tauffik Awade. He lives directly across the street. He's lived there since about 2018 with his wife and now baby daughter. Here's what he told me. One time, the vibrations from the base were so bad that one of my windows fell out of, yeah, the hinges and had to be replaced. Wait, the base actually knocked a window out of his frame? Yeah, that's what he said. And he showed him. me a picture of it too. You had to get it repaired. One night he said the music was so loud that his baby was just miserable and crying and couldn't fall asleep. So they left and took her

somewhere else. It was one time we just had to leave. We just went to like King Thai and sat there till 10 and then came home before she could go to sleep. You went to a bar to get away from I went to a bar. Yeah, we were there with a less than one year old at a bar sitting there waiting out the party before we can get her to go to bed. And that's with like a sound machine and all that stuff on. It's just like it vibrates. Wow. They took the baby to a bar.

But I guess, you know, for them that night, a bar was quieter than home. Exactly. And there's another issue here that Tauphiq and a lot of these other neighbors bring up, which is that some of these private events, they do a full museum buyout, which, you know, what they have to do to get it set up for the event? They truck and the equipment, the food, you know, setting up these bars, getting all the staff in place. It makes sense.

what that also means is that the museum closes to regular visitors. Okay. How often is this happening, Walter? Well, I looked at calendars that the museum puts out to the local block association, and I could see that the museum was closed 12 whole days from May through August this past summer for private events. Last summer, it was 11 days, either entirely closed or shut down like for a half day to prepare for that night's event.

Okay. So do museum members get a heads up when this happens? Not always. Tafiq says he sees it because he lives right across the street. You can see a bunch of parents get together like this is the event. This is like our, this is what we've been looking forward to all week. And then they get here and it's close. It's really disappointing.

Apparently there's this joke that's going around the neighborhood. Some people joke that it's an event space for maxirating as a children's a museum. And that's somebody who lives right across the street and actually uses the museum. Right. And I talk to another parent whose family uses the museum a lot. His name is Seth Wolfcott. He has two daughters. They're four and six years old.

He's been a member for about five years. And he used to go multiple times a week with his kids. And he says that he didn't renew this year. This whole thing definitely has left the bad taste in my mouth. And every time I think about renewing, it kind of feels like I'm, you know, I'm not going with my morals or my ethic. Like it makes me not want to support them. Five years as members and now there are.

out. So, Walter, how much money are these events bringing in? Well, because the Brooklyn Children's Museum is a nonprofit, we can actually look at their public tax filings. And so I saw in 2019, they brought in about $95,000 of rental income from events like these. In 2023, that had gone up to $360,000. In 2024, the most recent year the state is available, that was over $440,000 in rental income. Okay, so the museum is bringing in some really big cash. Yeah, that's more than four times what they brought in in 2019. What does the museum say about all of this? Well, the museum president and CEO Atiba Edwards declined a formal sit-down interview,

but did send in a statement where he emphasized that this rental revenue is really vital to the institution. And he said it helps subsidize roughly $1.5 million in free services for children and families every year. And they also say that they make their facilities available to other groups in the community. The community board has had meetings there. And then on the noise complaint specifically, it says that they coordinate with police and the local community board to, quote, ensure we are good neighbors. Now, Walter, it's pretty common for a museum to rent out a space like this. Is it not? It is really common.

You're right. Cultural institutions across the city do this to bring in revenue. It's an increasingly important thing that nonprofits are doing. post-pandemic, which screwed up a lot of budgets with the loss of federal funding across the board. I don't need to tell you about that. You know, the Brooklyn Museum last year announced it had to cut more than 40 employees because of budget deficits. So the neighbors who I've spoken to are saying, you know, they understand the museum needs to make money. I spoke to a guy named J.P. Edmund.

He's 61, and he's lived in Crown Heights his entire life. Oh, 61 years in one neighborhood. Tell me what's his take. Well, he started DJing in 1979, sometimes even on the museum's roof deck. So this does go, this goes a long way back. He's worked as an audio engineer. He's managed major artists, and he's worked with sound companies on tours. I know about the sound.

I know about what equipment is needed to play up there, and what they have is completely outrageous. They can use a quarter of what they're using on some of those nights. But they're trying to get that club feeling, you know, in an open-air scenario. So you need a lot of essence. SPL sound pressure, a lot of decibels, a lot of low end, and it just reaches habit. A quarter of the equipment. So is he saying the museum shouldn't be throwing these parties at all? He's not.

He says there are events up there that are loud, but manageable. His problem is the loudest ones. And there's an angle here that we haven't touched yet about gentrification. You know, it is well documented that in gentrifying neighborhoods like Crown Heights, noise complaints start to go up. And I asked J.P., if he feels that that's part of what's going on here. It's not a gentrification thing. It's a sound thing. It's a just, it's too damn loud thing. And, you know, while we're on this subject of gentrification, can we also just bring up the significance of the community where the museum sits? Yeah, that is a hugely relevant context here.

So Atiba Edwards, who's the head of the museum, his appointment in 2023 was historic. He's the first black man to run this institution. And he's spoken publicly about wanting to make sure that the museum remains connected and accessible to the African-American and Caribbean communities of Crown Heights. And he points to these events and he says that they reflect the diversity and pride of Brooklyn's communities. It sounds like neighbors here are complaining that the neighborhood is being true to itself. I mean, when we talk about Crown Heights, we know that this is a place where a Caribbean community. communities have a spirit of community, right? Yeah, and the museum definitely has an uptick of events around the West Indian Day parade, around Labor Day.

It's a huge deal. They've been doing this for many, many years. But neighbors like J.P. say there's a distinction between complaining about hearing music and then the really, really loud volume that's coming out at the Children's Museum. Gentrification may have amplified it, may have made more people speak out about it that have. But that doesn't excuse it from the fact that it is not within the limits of what is acceptable. And he and other neighbors have taken this complaint directly to the museum. Tauphiq, that man we heard from earlier in the conversation, he says he joined the local block association, partly because he wanted to be part of this dialogue.

That block association organized a meeting with Atiba Edwards, the head in the museum. And here's what went down. And it's important to note here, this is just Tauphiq's account. Just from the start of the meeting, he seemed kind of annoyed that you had to meet with us about it, you know, and wasn't really willing to agree to any kind of concessions, you know, like, just like, oh, yeah, we'll do our best to turn down the music. It seems like there was a lot of talking past each other and neither side really feeling satisfied.

So what did Taufik want the museum to do? He says he's looking for a compromise. Again, the idea is not to stop these parties. I'm stopped the museum from raising funds, right? because it's a source of fundraising for them, according to Atiba. It's just like, okay, how can we do both, right? How can you guys get the fundraising you need without it having negative impacts on the people who live in the community? So has there been any movement?

There has been. I was in touch with the local community board who met with museum leadership and police this summer. They described a much more positive interaction. The museum gave this document to them with noise mitigation proposals. most importantly from the neighbor's perspective, that they would set a maximum sound level of 70 decibels. Okay. Do the neighbors believe that they're going to do all of this? They're skeptical because they say they've been complaining for years

and feel like they've gone nowhere. You know, I'll say the summer party season is now over. This roof deck is now quiet. They're going to have to wait until next summer to see if anything changes. Yeah, next summer is the big test. Exactly. That's WNYC and Gothamist reporter Walter Woodman bringing us this story. Thanks a lot, Walter.

Thank you. And thank you for listening to NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre. See you next time.