Good Cellphone Service Comes at a Price

Tenants at 165 Pinehurst Avenue, a six-story brick building on a hilltop in Washington Heights (NYC), have something most modern Americans would envy: impeccable cellphone service. But it comes with a cost. They worry their building in northern Manhattan is going to collapse.

Their reception is so crisp because of two cellphone base stations and 20 antennas positioned on their building's roof, sending and receiving thousands of calls each day for T-Mobile and AT&T. To the cellphone providers, this hub — and others like it — are essential to accommodating the explosion of mobile data and voice communications. But the tenants, as much as they like their clear reception, are in an uproar because they argue that their 82-year-old building cannot bear the weight of the base stations. Long, zigzagging cracks have appeared along the building's outer walls, and mortar has crumbled from the parapet, which supports hefty I-beams that the base stations sit upon.