Mayor Adams and UWS Council Member Brewer Clash on Brooklyn Bridge Vendors
Adams wants vendors off the Brooklyn Bridge and the Department of Transportation is currently getting public input on its plan to kick off unlicensed vendors from all city bridges, but it is primarily aimed at the Brooklyn Bridge. Council Member Gale Brewer is proposing a bill that will let vendors remain in certain designated spots which if passed would derail the DOT plan.
| 29 Dec 2023 | 01:09
Vendors on the Brooklyn Bridge are crowding out pedestrians and the DOT wants to boot them. Mayor Adams agrees with the proposed regulations but recently city council member Gale Brewer said she plans to introduce a new bill that will permit some vendors to stay. Photo: Nicholas Liu
Eric Adams at his year end press conference at City Hall on Dec. 26, said he disagrees with Gale Brewer’s propolsed bill that would allow vendors to remain on the Brooklyn Bridge. Photo: Keith J. Kelly
Mayor Eric Adams has come out squarely against a new bill being proposed by council member Gale Brewer that would permit some vendors to stay on the Brooklyn Bridge. The Department of Transportation is finalizing regulations that would boot them, but that effort would be derailed if a bill that Gale Brewer proposes actually passes the city council.
Adams took aim at Brewer in his end of the year press avail on December 26. The DOT, which is responsible for the regulations on vendors, has closed the public comment period, but has yet to issue its final rules on vendors and the bridges.
”We put an initiative in place to clean up the Brooklyn Bridge,” said Adams. “Council woman Brewer came and said let vendors stay.” Adams said of the current situation on the Brooklyn Bridge, “That is an unsafe condition there.”
The DOT, which developed its proposed regulations in conjunction with the NYPD and the Department of Sanitation stated in October during the public comment period: “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, impeding pedestrian traffic flow.” DOT added: “Further, Brooklyn Bridge is a critical link in and out of Manhattan and, as a result, is at times subjected to high pedestrian traffic, such as during emergencies and protests, where the safe egress of pedestrians is crucial.”
Technically, the DOT regulations apply to all bridges, but it is clearly aimed at clearing the Brooklyn Bridge as its primary target.
And Brewer said she wants some vendors to be allowed to stay. “I believe strongly that a full ban on vendors is not necessary,” Brewer reportedly said at a recent city council hearing. “There are spots on bridges that are appropriate for vendors, and they are identifiable and can be enforced–particularly on the Brooklyn Bridge.”
Adams took issue with that. ”I think sometimes idealism collides realism,” he said and the brewing Brooklyn Bridge controversy is what he called a “perfect example.”
“Gale Brewer believed people should be able to line up and down the bridge and sell whatever they want,” Adams said, adding, “I don’t.”
Runners who traverse the bridge said there are so many vendors clogging the bridge it makes it difficult to traverse the 1.5 mile span.
”Gale should haul herself up there and see how bad it is especially from the City Hall side,” one runner told Straus News. “Congestion is the problem,” he said adding that the problem is “almost entirely new, since the Brooklyn Bridge bike lane was moved to street level. That was good, briefly, for pedestrians and runners. then the hordes of vendors moved in.”
He added, “Individually, most are fine, At least they are working. although most off the books. But together they are a menace to safety, aesthetics and respect for the law generally.”
He also complained that some vendors blast loud Jay Z music every day on infinite repeat.
Even within the vendor community their are differences, as a Straus News reporter found earlier this year when he visited. Some vendors conceded the laws were being poorly enforced by the police or Department of Sanitation might stop by and ticket a few vendors and ignore the rest.
Some disabled veterans thought they qualified for a NYS exemption and should be allowed to sell their wares even after other vendors get booted.
City Council member Chris Marte, whose district in lower Manhattan includes the Brooklyn Bridge, has expressed support for cleaning up vendors on the bridge, but allowing some vendors to stay in designated areas on the bridge.