So far over 200 towers have been installed to date with a total of 2,000 penciled in to be built in the next few years in the five boroughs. In addition to supporting 5G connectivity, the towers also allow those walking the streets of New York to access free Link5G kiosks in the city. With these kiosks, those with a smartphone can access free super-fast Wi-Fi, make free calls inside the US, and gain the ability to charge their phones for free.
“Link5G provides the necessary infrastructure to increase capacity, future-proof New York City’s telecommunications grid, and prepare it for new technology for decades ahead. The entire network needs to be built out in a way so neighborhoods that don’t have access to connectivity can have access, and that requires selecting locations like the one at Columbus Avenue between West 94th and 95th streets.”
-Link5G Spokesman
New Yorkers are known for their loud opinions and many who walk past the tower on Columbus Avenue have some negative things to say about how it looks. One critic is 58-year-old Pam Gould who said, “It looks monstrous. It’s definitely ugly. It looks like they threw it there without any thought. I don’t like it. It overshadows everything around it, like the trees. Don’t make it so obvious. Put it behind the trees. It doesn’t fit in with this neighborhood.”
While the towers are supposed to help New Yorkers get free and fast 5G cellular service, Tara Fray, who has been in the neighborhood for 20 years, said that the only people she sees using the Link5G kiosks are the homeless. About the tower on Columbus Avenue, Fray also stated, “When I saw it a month ago, I was thinking, ‘What the heck is that?’ It was a total shock to me. It would look good in Dubai. Everything there is artificial — man-made and metal.”
Not everyone is turned off by the cell tower. 71-year-old Allan Ripp, a resident of the Upper West Side for 45 years, was one of the few to praise it. “It’s great for any neighborhood, we are fortunate to have it. It looks like a sculpture, it’s very modern. It looks like of kind of what you’d see in the modern city.”
Another New Yorker, this one 65 years old, called the tower “an expensive expense,” and had other unkind words to say. “Charging your phone is pampering people. Do it at home. You spoil people on one hand and on the other, you let them live in poverty. That’s bulls–t. Does it have any value for this area? Absolutely not. How many people do they think are going to use it? It’s unbelievable waste — unless they have other use like spying on people.”
