The city wants to build a network of surveillance cameras and license-plate readers in Midtown, similar to a security system in lower Manhattan, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly announced yesterday.
The Bloomberg administration recently applied for a $21 million federal Homeland Security grant to start the project, called the Midtown Manhattan Security Initiative, which would be modeled after the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, Kelly said during his budget testimony to the City Council Public Safety Committee.
The network would stretch from 34th Street to 59th Street, from the Hudson River to the East River, and would be operated through the same coordination center that controls the 1.7-square-mile downtown system that began in November.
“We want to take that model and replicate it to the extent that we can in Midtown Manhattan,” Kelly said.
The $92 million lower Manhattan program is set to include 3,000 cameras and at least 100 license-plate readers when construction is complete. So far, it comprises 300 cameras and 30 readers.
In total, the Midtown system would cost the city $58 million, Kelly said.
The New York Civil Liberties Union panned the idea as an encroachment on public privacy.
“This is a matter of grave concern,” Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. “They’re spending millions and millions of dollars in secret, high-tech equipment for programs that compromise our privacy.”