This article appeared in the New York Times, September 12, 1952; p.44.

A person who takes a 180-horsepower noisemaker out into New York harbor on a ferryboat may expect varying reactions.  A. G. Cunnings of the Chrysler Corporation did this yesterday, for the benefit of Arthur W. Wallander, City Director of Civil Defense. The reactions were as expected.

After seven strategically directed blasts of the $5,500 siren, Mr. WaIIander was delighted, and said the monster was "terrific." He reserved decision on whether such a siren would be purchased, but indicated satisfaction with it as an instrument for air-raid warnings in the harbor. It might be placed an a tower on Governors Island, if the Army permits; or at the Owl's Head Sewage Treatment Works on Brooklyn's shore, Mr. Wallander said.

Mr. Wallander and other civil defense, Army, Coast Guard and city officials were aboard the ferryboat Miss New York with the siren. The boat was stopped at points near the Statue of Liberty and near Governors Island, and its blast directed at Battery Park, the Erie Basin, Staten Island and the Owl's Head works.  Aboard the ferryboat, which carried only official passengers and the press, the siren's wail was ear-shattering. No doubt it made a deep final impression aboard the passengers leaving here aboard the liner Gripsholm, which sailed close by.

To listeners posted at various shore points, the. skin varied from "not heard" to "loud and clear."  It seams that at the Battery and in the harbor, normal sound level between 11 and 11:30 A. M., while the tests were being made, varied from sixty-eight to seventy-two decibels. The siren, 10,000 feet from the Battery, raised the level there by one to nine decibels. But a police launch, roaming the water 7,500 feet from the shrieking siren, found rises ten to forty decibels. Since the siren is being considered for warnings to harbor craft and the waterfront, these reports were considered most important and best.