Word: baron
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Despite his optimistic, convivial manner, Robert Alex Baron, 49, knows true frustration all too well. For three years he has waged a lonely, almost quixotic war on the steadily mounting crescendo of urban noise...
...battlefield: New York City. "It is a laboratory," Baron explains. "Every noise source in the U.S. can be found here in larger amounts." His success: meager. "The big problem is communication," he says. "When air pollution was shown actually to kill people, there was action. Fortunately or unfortunately, we cannot show a direct cause-and-effect relationship between excessive noise and death...
...doctors know, noise irreparably damages the microscopic hair cells that transmit sound from the ear to the brain, thus causing hearing loss. In addition, it almost certainly affects blood pressure, heartbeat, and virtually every bodily function, and may have much to do with emotional ailments as well. Sums up Baron: "It is a form of persecution...
Acoustic Anarchy. In 1965, Baron was jolted awake every morning by a barrage of air compressors at a construction site near his Manhattan apartment. He decided to fight. "I found that there was no ordinance limiting the racket between 7:30 a.m. and 5 p.m.," he recalls. "Something had to be done about this acoustic anarchy." He left his job as manager of a Broadway play and by 1966 had established a volunteer organization called Citizens for a Quieter City...
...NADER REPORT OF THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION by Edward F. Cox, Robert C. Fellmeth and John E. Schulz. 230 pages. Baron. $5.95. A tell-it-like-it-is indictment of one of Washington's most slovenly agencies. One can only hope that, like the Hardy boys, Ralph Nader's student crusaders will follow up with a full-scale series...