Thirty-two-foot-tall 5G towers are popping up on the streets of New York City, aimed at transmitting high-speed wifi to pedestrians and businesses and improving cellular connectivity. With 150 such towers currently constructed and 2,000 more on the way, according to procuring agency LinkNYC, the debate is ongoing as to whether these towers are compatible with historic neighborhoods in New York City.
Greenwich Village, which has cobblestone streets and historic architecture, is a proposed location for the construction of at least one of these towers. According to Elizabeth Goldstein, the president of The Municipal Art Society of New York, the negotiations involving the city’s Public Design Commission resulted in a tower design that was compatible with a large variety of neighborhoods in the city—but not all of them.