UPDATE As the LinkNYC project continues its New York City roll-out, neighborhoods seeing the new cell tower for the first time continue to send up alarms. One of the 32-foot small cell poles has already been installed at 129 Avenue C, attracting an outcry from residents who want to see it removed. As EV Grieve reports, the Avenue C Block Association has already petitioned city hall to take down the new tower.
The Avenue C cell tower is one of many installed by CityBridge in an effort to get all New Yorkers digitally connected. Although the poles promise to deliver free, reliable WiFi service throughout the city, from the beginning, the appearance and placement of the structures has been controversial, according to EV Grieve.
“This tower is unnecessarily large and obtrusive and presents a jarring contrast with the low-rise tenement streetscape of the neighborhood,” reads the petition. “Avenue C has a narrow sidewalk, which is already crowded with pedestrian traffic, strollers, wheelchairs, trash cans, and numerous sidewalk cafes. The tower was installed only twelve feet away from the residential apartment building directly behind it, and negatively impacts the view of the street, and the historic urban landscape of the East Village. There has to be a better way to deliver technology in Manhattan that is less brutal in design.”
Online responses from the public ran the gamut from people complaining about aesthetics and phantom health concerns, to supporters chiding crybabies for embracing “quack” 5G conspiracy theories, according to EV Grieve. “Mobile towers are going to be tall,” commented a pragmatic Brian Van. “You can’t live in Manhattan and complain about things that are tall. You can point out anything else wrong with these things but you can’t claim you have a legal right to distance yourself from fake 5G threats you saw on the internet or claim that you have a legal right to not be around tall things.”
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