New York's homeless commandeer new public Wifi stations to watch TV, porn and YouTube

Edward used it to watch the Republican convention in Cleveland. Antonio likes to while away the night hours sampling cooking segments on YouTube. The hostile man with a beard and a hoodie was clearly accessing soft pornography, scrolling though pages of scantily clad women.

These are a few of the homeless men who nightly are to be found almost umbilically attached to one of the spanking new wifi hotspot stations that New York City has begun installing up and down the main avenues of Manhattan where public telephone booths used to stand.

In some areas, like along Third Avenue in the Gramercy Park district, there might be as many as two of these stations for every block. Sleek affairs with 55-inch screens displaying advertising as well as public service announcements - recently the latest medal rankings from the Olympics - they also serve as hotspots with lightning-fast wifi for free for anyone who wants to access it.

Eventually, as the telephone booths are ripped out one by one, there will 7,500 of these stations up and down Manhattan. Assuming the programme isn’t abandoned as misconceived.

The idea was cutting edge. Residents of Gotham will be able to connect to super-fast wifi wherever they are. There are USB ports to plug in smart phones for charging. And smaller screens, about the size of a tablet with touchscreen technology, are meant to make it easy for New Yorkers and tourists alike to get directions or go on Google, say, for nearby restaurants and other attractions. There is also a button for instant dialing to emergency services in case of trouble.

As the first of the stations have popped up since the start of the year in a trial area of a few blocks north of 14th Street, they have taken on an entirely unintended role. Each station is being commandeered, especially at night, by throngs of homeless people, usually men, for whom they serve as mini front rooms right there on the street - little televisions giving them all the entertainment they could possibly want and all for free.

Such is their popularity that come nightfall, there won’t be one of these stations without a homeless man resolutely parked in front of it. Some are simply charging phones. Others are gaping happily at what ever they have found to watch on the internet. The lucky among them will have brought their own head-phones. There are handy sockets for those too.

Antonio, a young homeless man originally from western Mexico, sat the other night on an upturned crate with a blanket draped over his head so he could view the screen better without being distracted by passing traffic or pedestrians. When interviewed by this reporter he had been there for four hours, watching endless cooking snippets on YouTube. “It’s free, free,” he says with a broad smile. He has almost no English and watches the screen without sound, but that clearly wasn't bothering him.

Jay, 34, who is also homeless and usually sleeps in a tent near the elevated FDR Drive a few blocks away, says he uses the stations, branded as LinkNYC, mostly to browse Facebook and charge two phones he uses for playing video games. He is grateful, he says, because it’s both free and he feels safe on a busy avenue, particularly since there is a police station just around the corner.

“It’s convenient,” he offers, comfortable in the sun chair he has learned to bring along with him each evening. “You don't have to pay a charge. If you go to Dunkin' Donuts (to charge), every half hour you have to buy something.”

Across the avenue, Edward says it was a policeman who first told him about the stations.”He told me I could get on the internet instead of walking around at night,” he said. That was about a month and a half ago. Now he hangs out almost every night at one of the stations although its getting hard sometimes to find one that’s free, such is their popularity with the local homeless.

He still recalls the night of the Republican convention in Cleveland when some dissenters tried to mount a rebellion against Donald Trump. “They didn’t have enough votes though,” he said with a tone of regret. He is afraid meanwhile that the city will soon rumble what’s going on and try to get the homeless people away, perhaps by starting to charge a fee for access to the internet.

Asked by The Independent on Tuesday to comment on the popularity of the stations among the homeless, the office of Mayor Bill de Blasio evinced no concern. "When we set out to bring wi-fi to sidewalks at no cost to taxpayers, we aimed not just to replace outdated payphones with something more useful — but to provide free services to all residents, including the 1 in 5 New Yorkers who don't have broadband access at home," said Natalie Grybauskas, a spokeswoman.

But Edward, who is 27, admits that having the homeless hog the stations may not be best thing for everyone in the area. “A lot of people like to bring their trash with them, they make it junky, they bring their attitude…this is meant to be a service for everybody,” he said. If any passer-by asks to plug in their iPhone for a charge he makes sure to get our of their way so they can do it.

For now, though, he is just grateful “It’s a great service they provide, that’s for sure,” he said. “This is the first time I can actually say, thanks, city, thanks.”

As for the older, grizzly-looking guy in the hoodie, he is in no mood to be interrupted by a reporter. He has some half-dressed women to look at.