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By: Hadassa Kalatizadeh
On Friday, city officials announced that Mayor Eric Adams’ administration may redesign the 5G transmitting towers. As reported by Crain’s NY, there have already been some 140 towers installed in New York City, sparking criticism in multiple neighborhoods over their oversized appearance. The 32-foot Link5G towers were planned as part of a public-private partnership aiming to expand faster 5G internet and cellular service to more neighborhoods. The plan was to ultimately install a total of 2,000 new towers across the city’s five boroughs. The rollout has been slow, however, due to the backlash which caused a few-months pause last year with federal officials ruling that more environmental review was needed. The greenlight has been given to resume with more installations, said the city Chief Technology Officer Matthew Fraser on Friday at a city council meeting. Still, Fraser added that the Adams administration is “reassessing design elements” in response to public criticism. “Some of the things that we’ve heard very recently, over the last year or so, is that many people aren’t fans of the look and the aesthetics of the tower,” Fraser said. “So we’re looking at other design options and elements from other cities that [have] done it, to see how we can make it different.”
Redesigning the towers would be a big step backwards for the 5G program, which began in 2021. The city had authorized private vendor CityBridge, which runs the parent program LinkNYC, to install the new poles. In 2014, LinkNYC had started replacing old irrelevant phone booths with WiFi-emitting kiosks. Later in 2021, former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration had persuaded the city’s Public Design Commission to make the move into 5G, signing off on the oversized towers. Even then critics had complained about the sheer size of the towers, but after installation those cries got louder. Business improvement districts complain that the towers inconvenience pedestrians and overshadow neighborhood businesses. Preservation groups in posh historic neighborhoods including the Upper East Side and in Greenwich Village have criticized the “ungainly” towers, saying the 32-foot poles don’t even help much, as those parts of Manhattan are already-well-connected.
Per Crain’s, Fraser did not disclose details about a design change or say when a new design may be rolled out, but he said the city may start a competition seeking proposals for designs of the new transmitters. Any changes would again need to be ratified by the Public Design Commission.
When Mayor Adams took office in 2022, he mostly showed support for the poles, embracing the 5G program. The city’s contract with CityBridge mandates that 90% of the poles to be installed in the outer boroughs and above 96th Street in a bid to bridge the “digital divide” and benefit the estimated 1.5 million New Yorkers who don’t have access to both home and mobile broadband.
Amid all the criticism, some business groups have spoken out in support of the towers. “When you’re judging how much you like or dislike the 30-foot pole, make sure you understand that the future of our economy may depend on that 30-foot pole,” Kathryn Wylde, the Partnership’s CEO, told Crain’s in June. She argued that most of the towers’ criticism stems from typical “NIMBY” objections from wealthy locals.
The city’s Office of Technology and Innovation, which oversees Link5G, stressed that the city has not made a commitment to change the plans. Ray Legendre, a spokesman for OTI, said in a statement that “CTO Fraser is interested in looking at every option for enabling existing street furniture to support Wi-Fi and other services, similar to the Link5G program.”
