This Street Warweekly series on the battle for space on the streets and sidewalks of New York.
A glimpse of New York City history is on display at the intersection of West 12th Street and Washington Street in Manhattan. Stone-like Belgian blocks, most likely from the 1870s, line the street. The three-story Federal-style brick building in the southeast corner was built in 1842. It is easy to imagine pulling up in a horse and carriage – or even in a Model T, since there is a 1920s Art Deco building in the northeast corner.
So when the city proposed putting up a shiny new 5G tower on that corner, the neighbors weren’t happy.
“Greenwich Village is known and loved around the world for its beautiful architecture,” said Andrew Berman, executive director of Village Preservation, an organization dedicated to preserving the heritage of Greenwich Village, the East Village and NoHo.
“There is harm in having these 32-foot tall futuristic towers, often with large video display terminals in them, in residential neighborhoods in historic districts,” he said.
Thousands of residents participated in a letter-writing campaign against the proposed tower, Berman said. And the state’s Historic Preservation Office recently warned that tall towers would have an adverse effect on landmark blocks in the Greenwich Village Historic District. The “incompatible design” of the poles would “create a visual nuisance,” officials said.
The fate of the West 12th Street tower is still under review by the Federal Communications Commission. But many 5G “smartpoles” are on the way.
The towers, which have been popping up around New York City since 2022, are part of the city’s efforts to upgrade wireless service. More than 150 of the 32-foot towers have been installed, and about 2,000 more are on the way, said Nick Colvin, chief executive of LinkNYC, the communications network responsible for the Link5G towers.
Today, many phones do more than just make voice calls, Colvin said. If you have an email that won’t be forgotten or trouble finding a location on a map app, or experience a dead zone in smartphone service, Colvin explains, it’s because the city’s network needs an upgrade.
“The demand placed on the existing infrastructure exceeds the capacity of the built network,” he said.
Colvin bristled a bit at the design complaints. “I’m a New Yorker,” he says, “I care about public spaces.”
The towers are silver and gray, like New York streetlights. The top is full of emitters, which are covered by a “shroud” to give it a sleek look.
Colvin said other designs had been considered and rejected. “He’s ugly,” he said. So Link5G worked with Antenna Design, the same company that designed the new MetroCard vending machines and subway cars, and the tower was designed just for New York.
Needless to say, not everyone is happy.
“People don’t want, first of all, to have this monstrosity in their neighborhood,” said Odette Wilkens, executive director of the NYC Alliance for Safe Technology.
They are concerned about plans to add what they call a “gargantuan” tower in Jamaica, Queens, near the historic Addisleigh Park neighborhood.
At least 16 community boards across the city — representing about two million New Yorkers — have expressed concerns about the rollout of 5G towers. City officials, including Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president, and Representative Jerry Nadler have written letters of support.
And while the FCC has declared that 5G technology is safe and not a health hazard, Wilkens is still concerned that the towers are a threat to public safety. In an email newsletter, he asked New Yorkers to talk about the tower. “You must act now!” he wrote. “YOU WILL BE CLOBBERED WITH 5G TOWERS.”
City officials, however, insist that the tower is part of a “critical” effort to give all New Yorkers access to high-speed internet.
“This administration will not be deterred by NIMBYism and will continue to prioritize democratizing access to technology, building a more connected and livable city for New Yorkers,” said Ray Legendre from the city’s Office of Technology and Innovation.
Many Link5G tower locations (as well as LinkNYC Wi-Fi kiosks, which do not have towers) were previously home to public telephones.
Years ago, if you wanted to let six people make calls, Colvin said, you needed 15 to 20 feet of sidewalk to bank pay phones.
So far, he said, 8,000 pay phones have been removed from New York sidewalks, and new 5G towers will take up even less space. Colvin says the design is “future proof”: “Like pay phones, we expect this to be around for decades to come.”
Can New York City move into the future while still preserving parts of its past? Colvin was hopeful.
“The mission of LinkNYC — and the 5G program — is to provide free digital connectivity to everyone in the city,” he said.
Connected, he said, “it’s more important to be able to participate in the economy, apply for jobs, communicate with the government, pay parking tickets, things like this. It’s just important to live.”
But he knows what he’s up against: “It’s always difficult, in a city like New York, to change things.”
Meet the ancestor of the 5G tower: the telegraph pole
While 5G towers are new, the idea of streetscape clutter to accommodate the technology is not. In the 1880s, New Yorkers had to deal with a different pole on the sidewalk: the telegraph pole.
A New York Times article from 1881 described in detail the arrival of the “unsightly” telegraph pole on Pine Street in Manhattan, explaining that “gangs of workmen” proceeded to “tear up the pavement” and erect telegraph poles “of such size and weakness as have rarely been seen outside.” forest of Maine.
The poles are not only called “crooked and rough” but “massive filth” that takes up space on the sidewalk, “now forcing people who don’t like to walk into sewers full of mud.” The state attorney general filed suit to have it removed. In 1882, The Times reported on another lawsuit aimed at removing a telegraph pole from West 21st Street.
In 1876, a Times reporter wrote: “One of the first surprises that greets foreigners on landing in New York is the growth of telegraph poles blocking the streets.”
But after 1900, telegraph poles became so common that this reporter found not one but two reports of people sleeping on top. (In both stories, they were drinking.)
David Schley, a professor at Durham University in England who specializes in urban history, has been researching 19th century New York for a project and saw many telegraph pole passages.
In the media, he said, “he is used as one of many analogs for the work of power.” For example, he saw a newspaper article commenting on the volume of telegraph wires “getting thicker as you get closer to Wall Street, because that’s where all the wires converge, and it’s the financial center of the city. It’s the road that connects to London and connects to places around the world.” .
Schley also said that there was a discussion about connectivity that was very similar to the current one.
“A great storm struck New York in December 1874,” said Schley, “and The Times took this as an opportunity to describe the interconnectedness of modern life, writing, ‘Before the invention of the railroad and the telegraph life was easier than it is today, and every household was less dependent on communicate with the outside world.’”
Was it the good old days?
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This week’s quote:
“The three men who are in charge of making whatever plan they want – they don’t think too much about the effect it will have. These men are not Hausmann, who made the streets of Paris. They are not urban planners. I feel ashamed of New York City, this not the guys who are really involved in this project. It seems like none of these three commissioners sit down and think, you know, what they’re doing here is really important, and it’s going to affect how the city is shaped forever.
– Gerard Koeppel, author “The City on the Grid: How New York Became New York,” in commissioner who laid out the Manhattan street grid in 1811.
