Now thats a tower!

Updated some location info. The top is probably just decorative. Most TV transmissions come from the Armstrong FM tower, Empire State Building or 4 Times Sq. (I think that is the one). The panels could be for a cellular carrier.

However, the wierd shoe box antenna and the metal yagis are configured in a manner that I would say this is a DirecTV reception point for NYC local channels. A similar but more organized configuration is in use at their reception point in Norfolk/Virginia Beach.

Some additional links for the interested:
http://www.carrierhotels.com/properties/rudin/
http://www.thehubat32sixth.com/

Better angles from a like minded fellow in Poland:

http://www.mobile-internet.org/images/us-nyc-brooklyn-bridge-2.jpg

I would bet that the DirecTV recpetion point makes sense. This was put up right after 9/11, and I know that a lot of antennas were lost after the towers went down.

Actually the broadcast recovery is seperate from 32 AotA. On 9/11 only WCBS-TV (along with some low power stations) remained on the air because a person forgot to terminate the backup transmitter site lease (the lease auto-renewed unless terminated) at the Empire State Building. WCBS fired the guy. Odd how things worked. Afterwards everyone flocked back to the Armstrong FM tower in Alpine NJ. This was ironic since WNBC was one of those stations. WNBC was once owned by Radio Corporation of America (I think that what RCA stood for). Armstrong worked for RCA and then had an ugly falling out or something like that with his employer. This was all during the 30s but the irony is still there.

Anyway, it was deemed that a permanent home on the Empire State Building would be untenable. The building couldn't handle the added electrical and cooling requirements in addition to the then displaced Analog and Digital TV stations the master antenna would have to accomodate. The master antenna was then or currently configured mainly as an FM master antenna. The WCBS-TV antenna is/was side mounted. So the new master TV antenna was built ontop of 4 Times Sq after the idea of a 2,000 foot tower in the Fresh Kills landfill was nixed. Things were so dire some of the low power TV stations ended up shooting their RF outside of windows on lower floors of the ESB.

Others can probably corrected any oversights and other goofs in my retelling.

Yankeys, a cellsite on top of that huge tower is quite possible, just like the cellsites on top of the Stratosphere tower over the Las Vegas Strip.
http://gallery.wirelessadvisor.com/showimage.php?i=1265&c=32
http://gallery.wirelessadvisor.com/showimage.php?i=1056&c=32

This is true, i forgot about that.