[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

we have a private deck off the back of the building, a shared brick-paved patio below that, and a very small shared grass yard in front of our building, all connected by the gangway on the side. it's a different kind of outdoor play space than a typical big suburban back yard, but our kids have a ton fun with it none-the-less. they still wave to every train that goes by. and they actually refer to the landing on the exterior wood stairs that go up to our neighbors' units as their "treehouse", and they play in it as kids in a regular tree house would (gotta love city kids!).

there is absolutely zero concern of debris falling from the tracks because there is a 20' deep parking pad and a 22' wide alley ROW between our back "yard" and the elevated tracks.

as for hearing loss, i don't know if that's a real concern or not, but kids have been growing up next to the noisy-ass el tracks of chicago for well over a century now, and i've never heard anyone say anything about it. ie. there's no commonly shared knowledge saying not to do so that i'm aware of. it is pretty fucking loud when a train rumbles by, but it's a very sporadic noise that only lasts for like 5 seconds and then it's gone.

i can see how some people might be annoyed by living so close to the el, but i actually find it really cool. it makes me feel more connected to the big giant city i live within. in a weird way, it was actually kind of a selling point for me. i mean, TRAINS!!!!!!

I've never understood the serious concern about noise and health(in the vast majority of cases).

I lived right below the path jets used from NAS Oceania when I lived in Virginia Beach. Was it loud? YES! Annoying sometimes? At first. Could it seriously have hurt my hearing? Highly...highly doubt it. And these are freaking jets...flying low.