Neighbors say Fairmount Water Works parties are causing late-night noise

Patricia Amberg-Blyskal’s nightmares are scored to the tune of “Sweet Caroline” — no offense to Neil Diamond.

The 69-year-old Fairmount resident moved into the condominiums at 2601 Pennsylvania Ave. in June 2022, only to learn that several nights a week from April to late fall, sometimes past midnight, are punctuated by the tunes of wedding celebrations and the like coming from Fairmount Water Works, the National Historic Landmark on the east bank of the Schuylkill, which serves as a popular event space.

“If you’re trying to sleep or even watch television, let alone read, it’s disturbing,” she said. She’s kept a paper trail of everyone she’s tried to discuss the issue with, including the Department of Licenses and Inspections, Parks and Recreation, Philadelphia police, and the Health Department.

There are also notes of almost every call she’s made on the matter, a timeline of right-to-know requests she’s filed, and decibel measurements of the amplified music she says cuts through the busy Kelly Drive and Pennsylvania Avenue into the rest of the neighborhood.

» READ MORE: By turning Fairmount Water Works into a party space, Philly exemplifies the worst of park privatization | Inga Saffron

Amberg-Blyskal’s main request has been simple: Can something be done about the music blaring from speakers? But it increasingly feels as if she’s shouting into the void, as one city agency punts her concerns to another, leaving her confused about the pecking order of noise enforcement.

“It’s so hard for the average person who has a life, who has a job, to research this stuff and it’s really hard to figure out where to start and then get someone to act on it,” said Christina Willis, 46, who says she feels the vibrations from music in her rowhouse on the 2400 block of Aspen Street.

Residents who spoke to The Inquirer about the noise said they’re not calling for the end to weddings at the Water Works. They’d just rather not feel the party in their homes.

Cescaphe, the business running events out of the Water Works, said that it is committed to addressing the noise concerns and responding to residents, and that it has been a devoted steward of the property. Still, the business is skeptical that it’s the source of the problem, though it did not say where the loud music could be coming from.

“Based on our involvement and experiences, we don’t believe this is originating from the Water Works,” read a statement from a company spokesperson. “We will continue to engage members of the community and to confirm the issue is not originating from the Water Works, we have hired a new sound engineering firm to help identify the origin of the problem.”

Also, the company said, its events do not run past midnight.

Once the only water pumping station in the city, the neoclassical property overlooks the Schuylkill, tucked between the Art Museum and Boathouse Row. Charles Dickens once complimented its “pleasant design,” a remark advertised to couples looking to host a wedding at the space.

Since the Water Works plant was shut down in 1909, it has been home to an aquarium, a public indoor swimming pool, and then an upscale restaurant in the mid-aughts. But with special events increasingly becoming the lion’s share of business, the restaurant switched to private dining in 2015. That year, Cescaphe, the events company with venues including Vie, the Down Town Club, and Tendenza, took over and signed a concessions agreement with the city.

» READ MORE: Cescaphe’s Joe Volpe to take over Water Works

The public-private partnership between Cescaphe, Parks and Recreation, and the Water Department has helped pay for the property’s upkeep and revitalize the space, now popular for lounging on a summer day and walking pups. In return, Cescaphe can use the Water Works, including a main building with wood floors and elegant chandeliers, as well as a deck that touts views of the lawn and river.

But temporary alterations Cescaphe made to the space in 2022, including adding a plastic-glass pavilion that enclosed the deck, became a topic of controversy, with residents complaining that the pavilion was an eyesore, blocking views of the original structures.

To Spencer Gober, 38, and Thomas McGinnis, 39, who’d moved into their rowhouse that May, it was the noise that was unbearable, making it so they couldn’t enjoy their backyard. Willis recalled being unable to pinpoint where the noise was coming from.

But a thread of fellow Fairmount residents on Nextdoor led Willis and others to the new deck enclosure roughly a quarter of a mile away.

That June, Parks and Recreation announced that the pavilion would not return in 2023 and would be replaced with tents, but that didn’t address the noise issue.

By September, Amberg-Blyskal was trying every agency she could think of to find a solution.

“I tried to find all the right channels to, number one, obviously let [Cescaphe] know that, ‘Hey, this is a problem, can you stop this?’” she said. “Then, number two, find out what the rules were and why this was allowed.”

More than a year later, she still hadn’t gotten clear answers. The Health Department says commercial properties are prohibited from creating sound that “exceeds 5 decibels above background level” at the nearest residential property.

Talking to neighbors seemed to get some traction, at first. About 10 residents, including Amberg-Blyskal, met with Cescaphe, Parks and Recreation representatives, and a sound engineer in November 2022.

In a follow-up email to residents, building management reported Cescaphe said it would look into “a new, smaller tent with a lower roof; turning the direction of the stage to redirect the sound; more enhanced sound absorption measures and more.” Cescaphe said it made those changes, and the start of wedding season in April 2023 seemed promising. But the noise issues returned within weeks, according to residents. Amberg-Blyskal kept a log of noise problems at Cescaphe’s request.

Neighbors could no longer make out the words to songs, yet they could feel the vibrations, they said.

As the season bore on, Amberg-Blyskal, Gober, and McGinnis showed up to events in their pajamas to ask staff to turn it down, tried 311, called police, wrote Parks, then-Council President Darrell Clarke’s office, and L&I, to no avail. They logged the decibel levels from their homes for Air Management Services, the Health Department division that enforces state and federal noise pollution regulations, in hopes of enforcement, but that also proved a dead end.

“The city takes these neighborhood noise complaints seriously and we’ll continue monitoring any and all noise complaints as they’re made,” said a city spokesperson in a statement.

The Water Department and Parks and Recreation confirmed they’d gotten complaints but said Air Management Services issued no violations during a visit. The service confirmed it has sent three warning letters to the Water Works and Cescaphe, most recently in 2022.

The worst night for Gober and McGinnis was Oct. 1. It was the last night the pair spent with their sick dog before putting her down and they felt the vibrations in their home.

“We’ve been told several times that this is just the cost of living in the city, and that’s not the case,” said Gober. “I can deal with buses, I can deal with neighbors who have a party every once in a while. This is six months out of a year of incessant vibrations and noise at a venue.”

Gober launched a Change.org petition to protest the noise that month. More than 150 people signed, but it’s unclear just how many were directly impacted by the noise.

As another wedding and gala season nears, Cescaphe, which said it started measuring its sound output three times a night in 2023, insists that it wants to be a good neighbor.

Amberg-Blyskal is not holding her breath, and plans to raise the issue at a Fairmount Community Development Corporation meeting next week.

“Given our last two years of experience and numerous efforts to resolve this, the proof will be in the pudding,” she said.