Do You Think Code Enforcement Cares? How About Sean Roland? How About The Planning Board?

The contractor handling the Pocketbook Factory hotel project, ARCO MURRAY, is well aware that they are not to begin work before 7 am, a rule that is in writing somewhere from the Planning Board's approval of this project.  No work and no noise until after 7 in the morning, a reasonable rule, especially given how close the project is to so many houses.  As far as I can tell, there are no special weekend rules regarding noise.  Work can, and does, begin on Sundays at 7 am (and sometimes before). 

This morning at 6:35, I was awakened by the lovely beeping noise, not of my radio alarm, but of a piece of machinery or truck from a few hundred feet away in the direction of the Pocketbook project.  Sure enough, while standing at the open gates to the site near the end of Prospect Street ten minutes later, I watched and listened as a worker maneuvered the lift he was in, high in the air near the roof.  BEEP BEEP BEEP.  BEEP BEEP.  Every movement the lift made (not just the wheels), BEEP BEEP BEEP, loud enough to be heard a block away, loud enough for all of the 500 block of Prospect to hear, for those on North 6th at the end of Prospect, as well as some of us on State Street.  Oh, and probably on Washington Street. We hear it all day.  Morning and day.

In fact, yesterday I ran into a Washington Street acquaintance who told me that a few months ago she spoke in person on the site with the ARCO MURRAY site supervisor to tell him that they had to stop the work noise before 7 am that was disturbing her and her family a few houses away. 

I've tried to call ARCO MURRAY's corporate headquarters in Illinois multiple times in the past month to complain about all the stones that wind up on the streets surrounding the project, but no one ever answers the phone.  It goes immediately to voicemail.  Believe me, first I tried my best to get this taken care of locally.  Starting in May, for about two months, I called the Site Supervisor, whose name and number are on a sign at the site, to complain about their stones (they are not pebbles!).  First, he thanked me. Then he called the Hudson Police to put an end to my calls, claiming I was harassing him.  Nice people this ARCO MURRAY from Illinois employs. 

The 331 area code serves the western suburbs 
OF CHICAGO!

A few weeks ago, I even asked Craig Haigh at Code Enforcement if he would take a look at the stones in the street surrounding the major development project located no more than 150 feet from his office.  He told me that he had just driven by there and hadn't notice any stones.  Then he told me to leave his office.

From the looks and sounds of things at the Pocketbook lately, they are in a real hurry to get finished so that the $400 hotel rooms are available this fall as scheduled.  If and when the hotel does open, I'm planning on going to the corner of 6th & Prospect with a bullhorn every Saturday and Sunday morning at 6:30 to see if I can get any sleeping hotel guests' attention with my best imitation of a truck in reverse.  Do you think the deep pocketed developers of the Pocketbook Factory, Sean Roland and Gabriel Katz, would mind? How about Hudson Code Enforcement or the Hudson Police Department? Would they care how much noise I make that early in the morning in front of a posh hotel smack dab in the middle of a residential neighborhood?