Noise Levels in Red Hook, Brooklyn, NY | Find Quiet Neighborhoods With Our Sound Map
58 dBA
Average noise across Red Hook
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
5,308
Residents above the EPA 55 dBA threshold
69% of Red Hook residents
76 dBA
Loudest residential point
City bus interior
This map shows modeled outdoor noise across Red Hook at 100-meter resolution, combining road, aviation, and rail sources. Green areas measure below 45 dBA. Orange and red exceed the EPA's 55 dBA outdoor threshold linked to long-term health effects. Use the layer toggles to view each source on its own or all together.
Overall
Road
Rail
Aviation
Click the map to explore
35 dBa55 dBa (EPA limit)90+ dBa
3545557090
Quietest (dBA)Loudest
Colorblind friendlyoff
What the numbers sound like
30 dBAWhisper
40 dBASoft rainfall
45 dBAQuiet suburban street at night
50 dBAQuiet office
55 dBAEPA outdoor threshold: light traffic 100 ft away
60 dBANormal conversation an arm's length away
65 dBABusy restaurant
70 dBAHighway traffic 50 ft away
80 dBACity bus interior
Population Above the EPA Outdoor Threshold
The EPA's 55 dBA outdoor reference level is a common benchmark for residential noise exposure, especially for activity interference, annoyance, and long-term community noise concerns. About 5,308 Red Hook residents, or 68.9%, live above that level. By land area, 62.1% of Red Hook is above 55 dBA.
Average noise levels for Red Hook residents, grouped by direction from the center of Red Hook. Eastern Red Hook carries the highest population-weighted average; Western Red Hook carries the lowest. Just 52% of residents in Western Red Hook live in blocks above the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, about two-thirds of the share in Eastern Red Hook.
Central Red Hook
58.1 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
70% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Red Hook
65.1 dBA · Loud
Busy restaurant
100% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Northern Red Hook
58.0 dBA · Loud
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
18% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Southern Red Hook
55.1 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
37% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Western Red Hook
54.0 dBA · Moderate-loud
Quiet office to normal conversation
52% of people above 55 dBA
QuietLoud
Eastern Red Hook sounds about 116% louder than Western Red Hook to the human ear, a 11.1 dBA gap. Every 10 dBA roughly doubles perceived loudness. Within any of these directions, two homes a quarter mile apart can still differ by 10 or more dBA depending on how close they sit to a major highway.
How far back from Mta-hugh L Carey Tunnel do you need to be?
Mta-hugh L Carey Tunnel produces an estimated 73 dBA at its loudest centerline points. Noise drops logarithmically with distance, with the exact rate depending on what's between you and the road. Tree cover, walls, terrain, and pavement type all matter. At roughly a quarter mile back, traffic fades into the noise level of a soft rainfall.
At source
73 dBA
City bus interior
165 ft
59 dBA
Normal conversation an arm’s length away
330 ft
52 dBA
Quiet office to normal conversation
660 ft
44 dBA
Quiet suburban street at night
¼ mile
36 dBA
Soft rainfall
½ mile
35 dBA
Soft rainfall
Calculated from the model's calibrated attenuation formula. About 2% of Red Hook sits under tree canopy (much lighter than most neighborhoods) and roughly 69% is impervious surface like pavement and rooftops. Both are folded into the per-place decay rate above. Heavier canopy pulls noise down faster with distance; impervious surfaces slow the drop.
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Airport Noise
Newark Liberty International (EWR) sits west of Red Hook. The U.S. Department of Transportation measures aviation noise around this airport directly, and the model uses those federal measurements rather than synthetic predictions.
Blocks under the approach and departure paths carry combined road-plus-aviation noise, with some exceeding 75 dBA on the map's Overall layer. Blocks on the opposite side of Red Hook, particularly to the east, show no measurable aviation contribution. Use the Aviation toggle on the map above to isolate the airport's footprint.
How Noise Is Distributed Across Red Hook
The bar chart below shows the share of Red Hook residents in each noise band. About 10% of residents live below the EPA's 55 dBA threshold, and roughly 29% live in blocks above 60 dBA. Long-term exposure in that range is linked to elevated stress hormones and cardiovascular risk.
How Red Hook Compares
Red Hook sits the lowest among the peer group. Below: how Red Hook's average outdoor noise and share of residents above the EPA threshold compare with Little Italy, Cobble Hill, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, and Downtown Brooklyn.
Average noise level (dBA)
Red Hook's 58.0 dBA pop-weighted average is the lowest among the peer group. New York as a whole averages 55.4 dBA and the U.S. averages 52.0 dBA. Both are lower than Red Hook because most of either area is rural land away from major roads.
Share of residents above 55 dBA
About 68.9% of Red Hook residents live in blocks where outdoor levels exceed the EPA's 55 dBA threshold. That's fewer than any of its peer group. Measured by land area instead, 62.1% of Red Hook's footprint sits above 55 dBA, against a New York average of 30.9% and a national average of 28.1%.
What This Means if You're Moving to Red Hook
Distance from highways matters more than the neighborhood name. Two homes in the same zip code can differ by 20 dBA if one sits 100 meters from Mta-hugh L Carey Tunnel and the other 500 meters away. The model captures this at 100-meter resolution, so noise exposure changes block by block.
Tree canopy can help reduce modeled noise exposure. Roughly 2% of Red Hook is under tree cover (much lighter than most neighborhoods), and the dominant land cover is medium-intensity developed land. Both are measured from federal USDA Forest Service and USGS satellite imagery at 30-meter resolution. Streets with 60% or higher canopy show 3 to 5 dBA lower noise than comparable streets with bare ground or pavement, which is why the per-place decay rate above already accounts for it.
Airport noise is directional. Newark Liberty International's approach paths concentrate aviation noise to the west. Neighborhoods to the east of downtown show no measurable contribution from the airport.
Sources & Methodology
The BestNeighborhood noise model is calibrated against nearly one million federal ground-truth measurements across four states. Road noise is computed from segment-level federal traffic data and propagated outward using physics-based acoustic decay, with attenuation rates that depend on the surrounding land cover.
All inputs are published federal datasets. Block-level noise is computed by combining road, rail, and aviation sound sources in the energy domain, the same physics used in professional environmental noise assessments. Read the full methodology.
