Alan Fierstein has been featured in 11 articles in the New York Times. An excerpt from one appears below. Click here for links to the others.

Living With a Business Below

By ELISSA GOOTMAN
Published: December 20, 2013

Excerpt:

Juliette Soucie, a personal trainer, had a fairly positive experience living above a small hair salon on East 76th Street. The salon kept business hours, five days a week, and when the music got too loud — the speakers were in the ceiling, a k a Ms. Soucie’s floor — the problem was solved with a friendly request. Today the space is occupied by an outpost of Drybar, a salon specializing in blow-drying women’s hair. It’s open seven days a week, as early as 7 a.m. some days and as late as 10 p.m. Blow-dryers are loud. Music, played at a volume that might drown them out, can be louder. And the long hours and festive atmosphere that lure customers have meant nothing but irritation to Ms. Soucie, 43.

For months, she and Drybar went back and forth. In moments of desperation, she says, she would hold a white-noise machine to her jaw, discovering this to be a way of masking vibrations. She spent more than $4,000 for the advice of Alan Fierstein of Acoustilog, an acoustic consultant who said he indeed found noise-code violations.

Drybar, which hired its own consultants, ended up installing insulation and other equipment to reduce the impact on Ms. Soucie, said Michael Landau, a founder of the company.

“Between lawyers, consultants and the work we did,” Mr. Landau said, “we spent tens of thousands of dollars to get something right that we thought was right from the beginning.”

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