Hangups over 5G cell plan
UES tower glower
A city plan to build a network of 32-foot-high 5G cellphone antenna towers on the Upper East Side has ritzy neighbors and merchants up in arms.
The Office of Technology & Innovation is overseeing the installation of 2,000 Link5G street towers across the city to bolster service, including 18 in Community Board 8 on the UES. But residents and businesses there complain the towers are an eyesore, a potential environmental health hazard and will attract vagrants.
The blowback — including from the fashionable Madison Avenue shopping district — has now landed right in the lap of broadband booster Mayor Adams.
Assemblywoman Rebecca Seawright, who represents the UES, sent a letter to Adams calling for a moratorium on 5G expansion.
“Our office is receiving numerous complaints regarding the 18 additional Link NYC sites that have been proposed for the Upper East Side,” Seawright told Adams in the Dec. 7 missive. “While we understand the importance of expanding access to critical telecommunication tools, community level input is essential. With great concern from our neighbors for a rushed implementation, I request a moratorium on further expansion of 5G on the Upper East Side before residents can weigh in on the proposed sites.”
Seawright said she’s concerned the towers’ installation was already “in the last steps before implementation” by the time city officials and the wireless consortium shared details with the community.
The lawmaker also said she’s “wary” after complaining the OTI ignored queries about an antenna being installed on a city-owned street outside of 520 E. 90th St. “without notification” to elected officials. She said she’s gotten no response to requests to relocate the tower.
Three of the towers would be in the Madison Avenue historic district, noted Matthew Bauer, president of the Madison Avenue Business Improvement District.
“It doesn’t seem fair. It doesn’t seem right,” Bauer said.
Resident Radames Soto said the wireless towers were unnecessary because “our service is great, our Wi-Fi is great.”
He said the shopping district, with the most luxury stores “on the planet,” is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, is struggling to clamp down on thefts and shouldn’t be sullied with towers.
“We need to help make it more elegant . . . not make it uglier,” said Soto.
During a virtual Community Board 8 meeting last week that attracted more than 100 antitower participants, a statement from East Side Councilman Keith Powers declared the towers “threaten the aesthetic and charm of the neighborhood.”
“I do share my constituents’ concerns about installing towers in residential areas where they will surely be obtrusive,” he said.
City officials defend the Link5G project as essential to the Big Apple’s future.
OTI spokesman Ray Legendre told The Post the agency welcomed the UES’ “valuable feedback” during the 60-day review process but added: “This administration believes that digital connectivity is a human right, necessary to fully participate and access opportunities in modern society.”
Adams, when announcing the Link5G program in July, said “accessible broadband and phone service isn’t a luxury — it’s a necessity.”