a strangely futuristic tower It recently appeared on the corner of Putnam Avenue and Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. The gray columns topped with perforated casings are a whopping 32 feet tall, extending higher than his three-story brick building behind them.
Marion Little, 60, who owns Stripper Stain and Supply, a hardware store on the corner that has been open for 17 years, said she and her neighbors had received no warning. One day there were workers outside. Then the tower materialized.
“We were shocked because we had no idea what it was,” Little said. People keep asking him about it because it’s right outside his store. “They’re emailing me, calling me on the weekends, Facebooking me, saying, ‘Hey, what is that?’ And I’m sitting there and I’m like, ‘I don’t understand anything. “It was that kind of feeling. ”
The object in question is a new 5G antenna tower built by LinkNYC, the latest piece of hardware in New York’s major technology upgrade.
New York City has signed an agreement with CityBridge, the team behind LinkNYC, to install 2,000 5G towers over the next few years, an effort to help eliminate the city’s “internet desert.” . Ninety percent will live in underserved areas of the city, including the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Manhattan’s neighborhoods above 96th Street.
Once the tower is operational, residents will have access to free digital calling, free high-speed Wi-Fi, and 5G services. Many locations previously had public telephones.
According to officials with the city’s Office of Technology and Innovation, 40% of New York City households lack a combination of home broadband and mobile broadband, and 18% of residents (more than 1.5 million people) lack access to both. not.
5G towers and underground fiber cables make up the infrastructure that carriers like AT&T and Verizon can use to better serve their customers. Most of the towers are still not operational, including the one on Mr. Little’s corner.
But as is often the case when something new appears on the New York City skyline, people seem surprised by the large structure, and some have expressed unfounded concerns about 5G. They are concerned about the tower’s size and, in some cases, the dilapidated views from his third-floor windows. Mr Little also questioned the practicality of putting the tower on the corner of the B26 bus stop, saying: “Buses turn here.” “It would be easy to miscalculate and hit something.”
Another 5G tower has re-emerged in Fort Greene at the corner of Vanderbilt Avenue and Myrtle Avenue, near the B69 bus stop. It rises next to his three-story residential building with a liquor store on the ground floor.
Mark Malecki, 26, who moved to New York City from Richmond, Virginia, in mid-October, takes in the intimate view framed by the windows of his third-floor bedroom. “I didn’t even really know what it was,” he said.
Just down the street lives Renee Collymore, 50, of Brooklyn. Her family said “four generations of her have lived in this neighborhood,” and she serves as Democratic liaison for Fort Greene’s 57th Congressional District.she I’ve been on guard ever since this tower appeared this summer..
Ms. Collymore, president of the Vanderbilt Street Neighborhood Association, said, “I have never heard of any residents asking for a tower to be placed where we live.” She plans to hold a meeting about it.
““Before this tower came, I had a great service,” Collymore continued. “Oh, do calls sometimes get cut off? So what? Please continue.”
In Manhattan’s Chinatown, a tower appeared on the corner of Mulberry Street and Bayard Street, and residents of nearby buildings declared it a “monster.”
“Who would want to see something like that?” she asked.
Towers aren’t the only 5G antennas installed in New York City. Some items, such as traffic lights and streetlights, are installed on city property.
In late September, Chelsea Formica, 32, heard the sound of a jackhammer outside the six-story brick building on the Upper East Side where she lives with her husband, Joe, and their young son.
Formica was in New Jersey visiting her mother when Joe called. “He was like, ‘Hey, they put something up outside the window.’ ‘I’m laying here on the couch, and it’s pretty big.’ came back. “I thought, ‘Oh my god,’ and I was shocked. It’s huge. It’s so big.”
Employees at telecommunications company Extenet had set up a 5G antenna, a cylindrical object roughly the size of a human, measuring 63 inches tall and 21 inches in diameter. It comes with a box that measures 38 inches tall, 16 inches wide, and 14 inches deep, making it about the same size as a file cabinet or nightstand.
The imposing antenna is mounted just in front of Formica’s living room window atop a slender three-story column more than 30 feet tall. It’s also a stone’s throw from where her 5-month-old baby is sleeping, which makes Formica uncomfortable.
“People say it’s safe here. The FCC says it’s safe and all,” she said. “I’m concerned that it’s so close to her son’s bedroom.”
Alex Wiglinski, associate dean of graduate school and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, said residents need not worry. He pointed out that 5G is non-ionizing radiation, as opposed to ionizing radiation, such as ultraviolet rays and X-rays, which people need to protect against.
Additionally, Dr. Wiglinski said, the tower “won’t be able to explode energy everywhere. It would be a concentrated stream of energy directly to your cell phone.”
And although the tower is tall, he says, “You’ll get used to it.” Like streetlights and traffic lights, “this will blend into the urban landscape,” he added.
Formica and her neighbor, Virginie Grenzer (whose antenna also dominates the view from her window), went to the sidewalk with a tape measure and discovered that the newly installed pole was less than 10 feet from the building. Typically, a community notification process is triggered pursuant to an agreement between the City of New York and his ExteNet.
Grenzer and Formica contacted their local representatives and distributed flyers urging their neighbors to do the same. They want the antennas removed, or at least moved along the asphalt-green grass field across the street, rather than next to homes.
New York City Councilmember Julie Menin, who represents Formica, Graenser and the rest of the 5th Ward, said she asked the city on behalf of her constituents to hire a third party to conduct emissions tests. Ta. To ensure the antenna complies with federal regulations, the city’s Office of Technology and Innovation agreed to do so.
Formica said that once it was turned on, it would be uneasy to live next door to it. She doesn’t know if she will move, but she will consider her options, she said. She said, “I think I’ll talk to a lawyer.”
Mr. Grenzer laughed, pointing to some crystals in a bowl on the windowsill in front of the antenna. “It’s supposed to remove the radiation,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “You’re just holding on to what you’ve got.”
