As City Pushes to Gain Digital Edge, Chelsea Gets Free Outdoor Wi-Fi

Google and The Chelsea Improvement Company, a nonprofit neighborhood redevelopment corporation, have joined forces to provide New Yorkers with free wireless Internet access in Chelsea. The two companies invested over $200,000 to make the project a reality, which represents the largest contiguous Wi-Fi network in New York City.

The free network is available outdoors from Gansevoort St. to 19 St., and between 8th Avenue and the West Side Highway. Included in the area of free Wi-Fi are popular public locales such as the Chelsea Triangle, 14th Street Park and Gansevoort Plaza.

Mayor Bloomberg, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Ben Fried, Chief Information Officer for Google, gathered to announce the project Tuesday morning in a garden at the Robert S. Fulton Houses, a city housing project.

"New York is determined to become the world's leading digital city, and universal access to high-speed Internet is one of the core building blocks of that vision," Mayor Bloomberg said in a press release. "Thanks to Google, free Wi-Fi across this part of Chelsea takes us another step closer to that goal."

Mayor Bloomberg said free Wi-Fi is currently available in 20 New York City parks. He hopes to wire an additional 32 parks by September.