BY YANNIC RACK | One of the busiest streets in the city is getting even more connected.
The southernmost stretch of Broadway is now hooked up to Downtown’s free public Wi-Fi network, meaning that residents and visitors alike are able to get online for free from the Battery all the way to Trinity Church.
The Downtown Alliance, which announced the news, now provides almost 4 million square feet of coverage in Lower Manhattan, mostly concentrated around the Lower Broadway corridor and the East River waterfront.
The most recent addition provides service on an extra one million square feet, and the network will be further extended some time later this year to include the rest of Broadway reaching up to the southern tip of City Hall Park.
“The Alliance’s free wireless network has enabled countless people to connect,” the group’s president, Jessica Lappin, said in a statement. “Whether looking for a great restaurant in the district, checking an email or sending Lower Manhattan photos to friends, we have provided the Wi-Fi people have needed.”
According to the Alliance, which manage the local business improvement district, its free Wi-Fi network was the city’s most extensive one when it launched in 2003. The BID says that the number of users has continually grown, to about 377,000 last year alone, up from 100,000 in the first year.
