The city is moving to ban all vendors on the Brooklyn Bridge to make more space for pedestrians despite licensed peddlers’ complaints that they’re being unfairly given the boot.
The Department of Transportation held a hearing on the new rule earlier this month. Among those opposed to the change was Tyrone Lopez, who is one of a handful of military veterans with a license to sell New York City-themed tchotchkes, shirts and other merchandise.
“We have a license, and there’s a lot more people out here who don’t have a license. But the bad part about it is, everybody’s going to suffer for it. I think it’s unfair for us veterans to even have to go through the same thing,” he told Gothamist. “The crowding of the bridge – we have nothing to do with that.”
The city has long given privileges to veterans applying for vendor licenses.
The new rule is the city’s latest effort to improve conditions on the Brooklyn Bridge’s walkway, which more than 34,000 pedestrians visited on a typical fall weekend last year, according to city statistics. In 2021, the city opened a bike lane on the bridge’s roadway, addressing harrowing conditions that forced cyclists and tourists to share space on the walkway.
But with cyclists gone, a large number of vendors have moved in. The Department of Sanitation, which enforces street vending rules, said inspectors visit the Brooklyn Bridge throughout the day, looking for violations that “impede the pedestrian experience.”
Since April 2023, the department has issued 240 violations on the Brooklyn Bridge.
During a recent visit to the Manhattan side of the bridge, dozens of vendors lined one side of the narrow and bustling boardwalk selling New York Yankees caps, NYC license plates, bobbleheads of former President Donald Trump and other trinkets. Scattered throughout the bridge were photo booths where tourists can film a 360-degree video of themselves with Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” playing in the background for $10.
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