IN recent years, New York City has invested over $2 billion in spectacular new waterfront parks. But that investment, and New Yorkers’ enjoyment of their parks and neighborhoods, is being ruined by an invasion of noisy, polluting tourist helicopters.

The long piers in Hudson River Park, near Chelsea, seem an inviting retreat, well removed from the noise of the West Side Highway. But these days the pleasure of a sunny bench and a river view is being obliterated by a fleet of helicopters flying up and down the Hudson. Just as the noise from one chopper fades away, a new one approaches, and it feels as if we’re trapped in a landing zone on a military base.

This experience is not unique to one pier, or even to one city park. Daily, about two million people on both sides of the Hudson have their senses attacked by the plague of tourist helicopters.

According to New York City Economic Development Corporation estimates, there were over 56,000 sightseeing tourist helicopter trips in 2014, operating every day, for as much as 10 hours a day — and all taking off from the Downtown Manhattan Heliport. To be clear, we are not including helicopters used by the police and hospitals, or even private business and leisure charters. In 2014, nontourist flights accounted for merely 1,936 of the 58,021 flights taking off from the downtown heliport. Moreover, tours represented 75 percent of all flights taking off from Manhattan’s three city-owned heliports.