NYC to boot vendors from Brooklyn Bridge starting Jan. 3

New York City will ban all vendors from the base of the Brooklyn Bridge starting Jan. 3, Mayor Adams’ office said Friday, aiming to clear the tangle of sellers who have long crowded the bustling pedestrian level of the celebrated steel and stone suspension bridge.

If effective, the city’s plan would mark the end of an era for the bridge: For years, New Yorkers and throngs of tourists have passed vendors selling trinkets and souvenirs on the Manhattan-side entrance to the 140-year-old crossing.

The ban on vending is to apply to all of New York City’s bridges and bridge entrances, but the plans are primarily aimed at the Brooklyn Bridge, where vending is particularly popular.

“The Brooklyn Bridge is one of New York City’s most stunning gems,” Mayor Adams said in a statement. “Tourists and New Yorkers alike deserve to walk across it and enjoy its beauty without being packed together like sardines or risking their safety.”

Adams added that the city will not “allow disorder to continue in these cherished spaces.”

Pedestrian use of the Brooklyn Bridge has returned to and then exceeded pre-pandemic rates after dropping during the COVID years. On an average weekend day in fall 2022, 34,000 people crossed the bridge, up from 17,000 a day in 2021, according to government data.

Vending on the Brooklyn Bridge appears to have proliferated after bikers were relocated in 2021 from the pedestrian level to a separate bike lane on the side of the bridge.

The mile-long landmarked bridge, one of the city’s most popular tourist attractions and a vital commuting tool for many cyclists, spans from Manhattan’s Financial District to downtown Brooklyn. It was once the longest suspension bridge in the world.

The wooden pedestrian path is 16 feet wide, on average, but can narrow to as thin as 5 feet at certain points, according to city records. It is located above the car level, which accommodates more than 100,000 rumbling autos on an average day.

Outreach to vendors began on Friday, the mayor’s office said. The sellers face a deadline of Jan. 2 at midnight to remove their wares from the bridge, with enforcement planned to start Jan. 3.

Adams said in his statement that vendors were receiving “fair warning.”

The ban will apply to sellers who have vending licenses. The planned rule was published in the City Record on Oct. 6.

“The ability of pedestrians to exit the bridge safely is jeopardized by vendors who display and store their wares, carts, tables, tents, tarps, canopies, coolers, and generators along the elevated pedestrian walkway,” said the notice.

The city Transportation Department introduced the plan. The proposal was developed with the Police Department and the Sanitation Department, Adams’ office said.

Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said the ban would make the Brooklyn Bridge safer and help pedestrians take in the span’s extraordinary views.

“The Brooklyn Bridge has been called America’s Eiffel Tower,” Rodriguez said in a statement, “and it’s important that all New Yorkers and the millions of people who visit our city each year can enjoy it without impediments to safety and pedestrian mobility.”

But not everyone supports the blanket ban on bridge vending.

City Councilman Christopher Marte, who represents the neighborhoods on both sides of the Brooklyn Bridge, suggested the plan was unfair to permitted vendors who have long worked on the bridge. He said unlicensed vendors would likely continue to sell on the span.

“We all realize that right now there’s a really big problem,” Marte said by phone Friday. “But if you look a few years back, there were registered vendors, with permits, following all the laws, making sure that the bridge was safe.”

“Those are the individuals that are going to be most jeopardized,” added Marte, a Lower East Side Democrat.

Councilwoman Gale Brewer, an Upper West Side Democrat, recently proposed legislation that would allow limited vending on the bridge, but only in the wider sections of the walkway.

“It’s a restrictive bill,” Brewer said Friday. “There wouldn’t be any possibility of vending at the entrances.”

Under Brewer’s bill, vendors would need to space out at least 20 feet from each other. The plan, if authorized, would supersede the mayor’s rule.

Marte declined to support the bill on Friday, saying that he would like to see changes made to it. “It’s still fairly early with that legislation,” he said.

Brewer said the introduction of the bill was the start of a “long conversation.”