After months of complaints from residents, businesses and other elected officials, Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, conceded that combining unfettered internet access with free Wi-Fi was a recipe for bad behavior.
NEW YORK — The Wi-Fi kiosks in New York were designed to replace phone booths and allow users to consult maps, maybe check the weather or charge their phones. But they have also attracted people who linger for hours, sometimes drinking and doing drugs and, at times, boldly watching pornography on the sidewalks.
Yielding to complaints, the operator of the kiosks, LinkNYC network, is shutting off their internet browsers, but not their other functions, while they work out a Plan B with city officials.
The switch, announced Wednesday, is a case study in unintended consequences, commendable goals gone somewhat awry. Mayor Bill de Blasio’s aim of providing modern technology to the masses ran headlong into the reality of life on the city’s streets. After months of complaints from residents, businesses and other elected officials, de Blasio, a Democrat, conceded that combining unfettered internet access with free Wi-Fi was a recipe for bad behavior.
The retreat comes seven months after the mayor introduced the network amid much fanfare as a key plank of his promise to bridge the digital divide in the city. The kiosks would replace more than 7,500 public pay phones and bring free Wi-Fi and phone service to every neighborhood.
Most Read Nation & World Stories
Users were expected to make short stops at the kiosks. But the sites quickly attracted homeless people and other idle users who took full advantage of the unlimited access to the internet to turn the kiosks into al fresco living rooms, watching movies and playing music for hours.
“People are congregating around these Links to the point where they’re bringing furniture and building little encampments clustered around them,” said Barbara Blair, president of the Garment District Alliance, a business group in Manhattan. “It’s created this really unfortunate and actually deplorable condition.”
Blair said her organization of Midtown merchants and property owners had welcomed the kiosks as an overdue replacement for increasingly outdated phone booths that were attracting vagrants and drug dealers.
“We’re a modern city; we should have Wi-Fi,” Blair said. “But when something has an outcome that you completely weren’t anticipating, then you have to go back and reconsider.”
City Councilman Corey Johnson, a Democrat whose district encompasses Greenwich Village, Chelsea and part of Midtown, said police officials had asked for the removal of “several problematic kiosks” along Eighth Avenue. He said he had observed people watching pornography on the kiosk screens with children nearby.
“These kiosks are often monopolized by individuals creating personal spaces for themselves, engaging in activities that include playing loud explicit music, consuming drugs and alcohol, and the viewing of pornography,” Johnson wrote in a letter last month to officials of the city and LinkNYC.
In a Sept. 1 meeting at his office, Johnson said, officials agreed to his demand for a moratorium on the installation of additional kiosks on Eighth and Ninth avenues in his district.
A spokeswoman for the mayor said the Police Department had not made any official request for kiosks to be removed. A statement explaining the decision said: “There were concerns about loitering and extended use of LinkNYC kiosks, so the mayor is addressing these quality-of-life complaints head on. Removing the internet browser from LinkNYC tablets will not affect the other great services LinkNYC provides — superfast Wi-Fi, free phone calls or access to key city services — but will address concerns we’ve heard from our fellow New Yorkers.”
Jen Hensley, general manager of LinkNYC, said the consortium that built and operated the kiosks had begun “removing the internet browsers while we look at ways to enhance the service.”
She said those changes could include adding services and bringing back the browsers with limits on their use.
Gale Brewer, the Manhattan borough president, who had demanded changes to the kiosks, said she was pleased to hear about the shutdown of the browsers, and noted that the free Wi-Fi was the true benefit of the kiosks.
“I don’t think anybody should be able to sit there and watch movies all day long,” Brewer, a Democrat, said. “People are pulling up sofas or chairs or what have you.”