{"id":47895,"date":"2026-04-25T06:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T10:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/2026\/04\/25\/exorcist.html"},"modified":"2026-04-25T06:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T10:53:10","slug":"exorcist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/2026\/04\/25\/exorcist.html","title":{"rendered":"Exorcist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A kid on the downtown 1\/2\/3 platform at Times Square this AM sounded like something straight out of “The Exorcist.” I’m bad at guessing kinds’ ages but I’d say he was 7. Whatever his age he seemed far too young to be yelling stuff like “FUCK YOUUUUUUUU!!!” and “GO FUCK YOURSELF!!!” and “WHAT THE FUCK!!!!” People all around were watching this, as the mother\/caretaker appeared to be taking it in stride. While not exactly a positive takeaway her demeanor at least suggests the kid has ongoing issues of some sort. She was not physically abusing him in any way, only trying to talk calmly to him and calm him down. I expected projectile bile and the famous 180-degree turning of the head at any moment from this child. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did not save a recording of it but I did send it to the DEP. They have an app called NYCNOISE that I’ve used to send noise samples from various places, usually involving sirens, construction, and above-ground subways. The DEP is not interested in subway noie from inside the trains or stations but this screaming kid should qualify for analysis or inclusion under the “OTHER” category that I chose. The recording is sent to the DEP but not saved on my device. Maybe I shouldn’t have sent it. In the moment I thought this was just another obnoxious crying baby but after I sent the 5-second sample to the DEP is when the obscenities started. It doesn’t matter, it’s all anonymized, and screaming babies are certainly a toxic kind of noise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The app creates your personalizd noise map, which is not anything I ever thought I’d want or need. Here’s mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I am certain it does not record every submission I attempt to send. I suspect it does not want you sending multiple samples in rapid sequence. I had a bunch of noise reports from EWest Maspeth last month but I think only one got recorded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you soom in it will tell you waht you reported but it does not save the actual sound sample, which I was sort of expecting would happen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The loudest noise I got so far was an ambulance siren, over 100db. The DEP is not interested in MTA noie from inside the trains or stations because the DEP is a City agency, while the MTA is a state-level entity outside of the NYC DEP’s jurisdiction. The MTA is not really even an agency but a public-private corporation in the public interest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A kid on the downtown 1\/2\/3 platform at Times Square this AM sounded like something straight out of “The Exorcist.” I’m bad at guessing kinds’ ages but I’d say he was 7. Whatever his age he seemed far too young to be yelling stuff like “FUCK YOUUUUUUUU!!!” and “GO FUCK YOURSELF!!!” and “WHAT THE FUCK!!!!” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47894,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-text","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot_20260425_064651.jpg?fit=1080%2C2316&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/saumAn-exorcist","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}