Residents Fear Risks from Cell Antennas

 by Barry Owens

One Monday morning early in March, Patti Aronofsky and her husband, Aaron Tomlinson, awoke to find that cell phone antennas had sprouted outside their window at 145 Nassau St. Such antennas are not an uncommon sight in the neighborhood, but these had arrived without warning and seemingly overnight. More troubling for Aronofsky and Tomlinson, the antennas, nine in all, were on the roof of the four-story J&R building next door, putting them in a direct line with the couple's and other tenants' apartments.

Aaron Tomlinson stands at the window of his apartment at 145 Nassau St. Just outside can be seen the antennas recently installed by T-Mobile. Photo: Allan Tannenbaum

"On top of a tall building, I can understand," Tomlinson said. "But here?"

Fearful that radio frequencies radiating from the antennas could pose a health risk to their two-year-old daughter, Aronofsky got on the phone looking for answers. She called Community Board 1, Councilman Alan Gerson's office, the Federal Communications Commission, and finally to T-Mobile, the cell phone provider that installed the antennas.

She soon learned, as have others with similar fears, that the antennas are unregulated by the city. A bill was introduced last year in the City Council that would force the city to start monitoring sites, but it remains stuck in committee.

Meanwhile, cell phone providers are free to put up antennas on as many sites as they wish, without oversight.

Landlords can earn as much as $10,000 a month by leasing rooftop space to cell phone providers.

"Ironically," noted Daniel Kohs, a co-op board member at 145 Nassau St., "we had actually talked about putting cell antennas on our roof as a source of revenue. But we decided they were unsafe."

Jane Builder, who handles government and community relations for T-Mobile, said that as usage increases, more antennas will be installed Downtown, in most cases atop low-rise buildings to better reach street-level cell phone users.

Critics of the proliferation of cell antennas say that FCC standards should be more stringent because little is known about the long-term effects of low-level radiation.

"It's not about us," said Tomlinson. "It's about our child. We don't want to learn 20 years later that this was hurting her."

On the couple's insistence, T-Mobile representatives paid a visit to their apartment late last month. A group of six showed up, including a public relations spokesman and David Collins, an independent contractor hired to measure the radio frequency (RF) levels in the apartment.

Collins' measurements showed RF levels far below what the FCC deems hazardous. But they failed to pinpoint the levels from the T-Mobile antennas because those could not be isolated from the rest of the radio frequencies in the air.

Aronofsky said she wants the company to make a second visit, this time with the antennas turned off while another measurement is taken. And she will hire a second engineer to be on the scene to double-check the results.

"If [T-Mobile's] results are to be believed, then I am happy," she said. "But I want to be sure."

Carol Downey, who three years ago went through similar rounds of testing with Verizon, long harbored doubts about the safety of the low-power antennas on the roof of her building at 67 Vestry St. Last month, after years of research and worry about radio frequencies and electromagnetic fields, Downey took a drastic step to protect her family. She moved to New Jersey.