The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1899-05-27
?. R, R PUMPING STATION
Effect Of This Mighty APP
paratus on Harrison's
Sleep.

when the Pennsylvania Railroad Com
pany does anything 1t does 1t thoroughly
said a jackson street man, to a Newark
Sunday "Calr' reporter. ut can wake
up more honest working folks and keep
them awake longer than anything in
New Jersey that 1 know about
Then spoke a man who lives in quiet
Rector street, saying:-'I know what you
allude to. You nave reference to that
noise. 1t has been keeping us all awake
for five or six weeks, until exhaustion
compelled Sleep Another man, who
lives in Bleecker street, said.-"I, too,
nave been robbed of sleep by this mys-
FERROUS and incessant sound. I thought it
came from the electric lighting station"
Then a resident Of Lombardy street re-
marked:-"I set up an investigation re-
Gently to learn the cause of the noise.
A sneighborhood committee attributed it
to B%allantine's malthouse, and complaint
was made there. There was a prompt
denial hi there was any noisy ma
chinery in the place. Everything obnox-
ious is blamed to a brewery said one of
the superintendent. We will take
measures to find where the noise eman-
ates from
We'll were sent Out, dilQ tIdCS thS oiS
turbance to it's source in a pumping sta
ton of the Pennsylvania Railroad, adj
joining the plant of the Atha & Hing
worth Steel Works. in Harrison. This
station was built nearly twenty years g
to take water from driven wells and de-
liver it at Jersey City for all railroad pur-
poses up to its capacity 1t was piped
along the line of the road, over bridges,
under draws, through cuts and over tres
ties, and furnished water for locomotives,
ice plants, electric light plants, for drink
ing and many other uses.
Until six or seven weeks ago it had a
silently working engine, and few persons
knew hat the plant was in existence.
Then came a change. The railroad COM
pany put in a new pump. 1t was of great
er efficiency than the old one, and it felt
in duty bound to tell everybody that 1T
was there in the most vehement manner.
A peculiar feature of the matter is that
the pump does not seem to disturb any
body near at hand. 1t makes more of a
sensation a mile or two away than it
does in a radius of 100 yards, or a quarter
of a mile. Perhaps this is because resi-
dents of the region close to the junction
Of the Morris and Essex, the main line of
the Pennsylvania and the Centre street
branch, are so accustomed to noise that
they would not wake up unless a freight
train came through one of the windows,
ran over the bed and out of another win
dow: but there are others who are not
accustomed to unseemly sounds at night,
and it takes considerable time to get used
to them under some circumstances. A
- ,.,lo aap claan cO11n6Jy npxt door IN
a church when the chimes are ringing will
be awakened by a mouse gnawing at the
Dashboard, or by the stopping of his bed
room clock.
This particular noise which is disturb
ing nearly everybody within a radius of a
mile and a half from the Pennsylvania
pumping station is peculiarly exasperat-
ing. The station is one mile from the
west bank of the river, and the noise
seems to grow in volume as it extends be-
yond the point of production. 1t is evil
lent that it is the product of an exhaust,
and it is equally evident that an outlay
of a few dollars could remedy it. Its
monotony is the disturbing element, per-
haps, rather than the volume of sound. :
One complainant remarks: 1T is SO dis
mally monotonous at my house in Wash
ington street that it is driving a nervous
| cousin of mine crazy She says that it
sounds to her like the cough of a doomed
| consumptive."
at sounds like the bark of a dismal dog,
but with the regularity of the ticking of
a clock, said a denizen of Front street.
II always think of a dog barking. when I
| lie awake and listen to it, but at the same
r. ~ 4,.+ n ~ an11Jd1atf haVk
| twice a second for hours at a time and
i've
Another man, who lives in Madison
| street, said:-"Did you ever listen to the
| airpump on a locomotive when 1t IS stand
ing at a station? Well, that's what this
noise seems like to me-"
.It's a rasping, coughing sound, and it
| raises the mischief with my nerves at
night said a young woman who lives
| in Ogden street. II did not know where
it came from until you told me, but our
whole household suffers from the annoy
| ance. Last year and year before we were
| annoyed by a constant rumbling, which
I was told came from a lighting plant
| across the river. but this is much worse
now that we sleep with the windows
OPEN
A Sunday Calf reporter went down the
| wine to the source of the noise on Thurs.
| day night, and located it beyond doubt
| in the pumping station. He found that it
| was intermittent in volume and period,
like the explosions of a gas engine, and
| that it was less annoying within a few
hundred feet of the station than at the
| Centre street bridge, and also that the
| direction of the wind had much to do
| with the effect upon the ears. At a point
in Front street, opposite the Newark end
| of the bridge, the effect was decidedly
| throbbing upon the eardrums, and over
| the river it was like the rasping cough
| without ~pulsating waves. 1t was annoying
| at any point within hearing, and it is a
| wonder that any such considerable COM
| pany as the Pennsylvania should permit
| 1t to exist for a day. A factory whistle
continuously blowing could not be a much
| greater nuisance.