Hard to argue with that.
But you probably haven't heard from Jonathan Frank, who lives 11 floors above that jewel of a square, in a most rarefied prison.
"I represent the other side of the argument," he says, sitting in his living room amid hundreds of books, a humming floor fan, and a pair of noise-canceling headphones bought for $35 at a store for hunters.
Frank is 63, retired from the Philadelphia schools. He spent most of his career in Kensington, advising vocational students. His high school had a music program. He likes music - even musicians.
"I am all for people developing their talents," he says. "I am not opposed to what the ACLU stands for. But the view that these are innocent people who merely want to exercise their freedom of expression, and here are these cold, fascist cops coming around, curtailing their rights - that is bull."
Isn't the 11th floor far from the buzz and din? we ask. But then Frank gives a short course in the physics of sound, explaining how waves bounce off the close buildings and seem to head right through the windows of his one-bedroom condo and into his sensitive ears.
"If someone at Curtis is playing the piccolo, that's different. I can hear drums played way, way across the square. It's just excruciating. You can't think. You can't read. You close the windows. You turn on a fan. You put hunter's muffs on. But the trouble is, if that guy decides to leave five minutes later, you can't [even] hear that the music has stopped."
Up here, over raspberry juice from Trader Joe's, he invites me to listen. Through open windows, there's a vague whir of traffic, a truck brake's shriek. But . . . nothing more.
For the last month, since police have asked the city solicitor to clarify the law on music in the park, there's been a kind of hush.
"Like the heaven of the Hindus," says Frank.
