New York City will ban vendors from the Brooklyn Bridge starting Wednesday, Mayor Eric Adams said Friday.
Adams said the move will make the bridge, which he called one of the city’s “most stunning gems,” safer for pedestrians. It also will uproot dozens of vendors who crowd the span on a typical day, rubbing elbows with pedestrians and camera-wielding tourists.
“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 said in a statement. “We’re not going to allow disorder to continue in these cherished spaces.”
The ban comes under new city Department of Transportation rules prohibiting vending in pedestrian walkways and bike lanes on all city bridges and their approaches.
But dozens of vendors can be found selling various wares on the bustling bridge, including Yankees caps, novelty NYC license plates, keychains, refrigerator magnets and bobbleheads of former President Donald Trump.
Also vying for bridge walkers’ dollars are photo stands where tourists can record 360-degree videos of themselves — with Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” playing in the background — for $10.
The ban marks 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. It also comes amid a larger crackdown on unlicensed vending across the city under the Adams administration.
The city says the bridge’s high foot traffic makes vending along the walkways unsafe, as vendors’ wares impede the flow of pedestrians as well as their ability to safely exit the bridge.
MD Rahman, a licensed vendor, has been selling pretzels, water, hot dogs and sodas on the Manhattan side of the bridge for 15 years. He said someone from the city gave him a flier Friday that says he has to pack up his business by Tuesday, the day after his birthday.
“I’m feeling very bad,”…
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