Why a Pierhouse Condo Owner's Noise Suit Kept a Park Bathroom Closed for Six Years

For much of the past six years, one of the public restrooms inside the Pierhouse complex at Brooklyn Bridge Park has been barricaded. The reason is a lawsuit filed by Salim Samaha, the owner of a $4.95 million duplex directly above the facility, against Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation. Samaha says the sound of flushing toilets, hand dryers, stall doors and a park storage room creates a persistent nuisance in his home.

The restroom has now been through multiple renovations. The first remediation by developer Toll Brothers did not satisfy Samaha. A larger reconstruction in 2020, delayed by the pandemic, added rubberized soundproofing, insulation, rubber-coated pipe hangers and relocated hand dryers, but Samaha's own sound consultant still found violations of the New York City noise code. The city's Department of Environmental Protection, testing during the same period, found no unreasonable noise.

A January 2024 settlement called for a second rebuild with neutral acoustical verification. That effort stalled over a small but symbolically charged detail: the contractor refused to install acoustic waffle padding because it would conflict with the manufacturer's instructions and city plumbing code. After an appellate ruling in August 2024, the restroom was closed again until the park can prove compliance, which it says it cannot do because Samaha has not granted its expert access. In the latest court action, a judge sent the dispute to neutral acoustical firm Wilson Ihrig.

It is not a small inconvenience for the park. Brooklyn Bridge Park draws about five million visitors a year, and this is one of six restrooms across the 85-acre waterfront site. On busy days, the remaining bathrooms can have lines, and during earlier closures the park documented people urinating outside the building.

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What the Pierhouse-Brooklyn Bridge Park Standoff Shows About Noise Litigation

This is a dispute in which both sides can point to technically plausible evidence. Samaha's consultant SoundSense reported violations; the DEP found none. Acoustical consultant Alan Fierstein told Curbed that microphone placement and changing background noise can easily produce opposite results in a flush test.

Why two noise tests could both look correct

For a sudden sound such as a toilet flush, New York's noise code generally requires a clear jump above the background level. A private consultant measuring during a quiet moment may record a violation, while a city inspector testing when a truck or other park sound passes may not. Public toilets can also be roughly 20 decibels louder than a typical residential fixture, so the underlying complaint is not inherently implausible.

How a small construction detail became the final roadblock

After both sides settled in January 2024, the project was supposed to end with neutral verification. Instead, the contractor refused a piece of acoustic waffle padding that the settlement called for because the manufacturer's instructions and city plumbing code did not allow it. That refusal has become the central standoff: Samaha's lawyer describes it as evidence the park never intended to finish properly, while the park's lawyer calls it a pretext to keep the restroom shut.

What this says about private claims and public space

One resident with the means to fund sound consultants, depositions and multiple motions has effectively kept a public amenity closed for years. The legal standard is not whether the space is useful but whether the noise can be shown to violate the code. That process has become circular because the park needs access to the condo while the owner has little incentive to cooperate before the outcome he wants. The neutral Wilson Ihrig review may break the impasse, but six years in, the case is a reminder that in New York even a public bathroom can become a high-stakes property dispute.