And don’t come back
After several years of the Battery being filled with illegal hawkers peddling tour boat tickets and tricking tourists seeking passage to the Statue of Liberty, most are gone. A holiday miracle? No. Just the city enforcing the law against selling anything inside a public park without a franchise or concession. About time. Day after day, dozens of hustlers selling tickets swarmed the Battery as people exited the South Ferry and Bowling Green subway stations asking, “Are you going to the Statue of Liberty?” That was illegal, because both locations are parkland.
It was also a con, because the $35 tickets they offered were for a one-hour boat tour of the harbor that did not stop anywhere. Authentic, government-approved tickets to Liberty and Ellis islands cost $18.50 ($9 for kids) and are sold only at Castle Clinton and online.
Hawkers who hassled tourists and commuters alike, who cavalierly cheated many a visitor to New York out of a once-in-a-lifetime chance to visit Lady Liberty — they’re now largely gone.
The hero here is the city Economic Development Corp., which manages the public docks. EDC gave the heave-ho to Freedom Cruises, which was sailing the 400-passenger, Mississippi riverboat-style Queen of Hearts from Pier 36 on the East River at Montgomery St. between the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges.
No boat and no rides means no tickets and no hawkers. And last week there wasn’t a single hustler hunting for marks in the Battery. But Freedom won a reprieve from a judge until a court hearing next week and when the boat came back, so did the illegal vendors. What more proof than that does the judge need to allow Freedom’s eviction from Pier 36?
The boat operator’s agreement for access to the dock clearly says Freedom must obey all state and local laws. It also states that the city may “terminate the permit at will for any reason or no reason at any time by giving not less than 24 HOURS’ WRITTEN NOTICE.”
EDC issued a stern warning to Freedom to rein in its ticketmen in a Sept. 18 letter demanding it immediately cease illegal ticket hawking on city property. Nothing changed. Three months later, the boat got the boot.
Other boat tours cruise on at Pier 36 as Go New York Tours’ red-hulled vessel, the Manhattan, sails on for one-hour harbor tours, selling their tickets online, at the dock or a ticket window near Bryant Park. Go New York must refrain from filling the void at the Battery or risk facing eviction.
Should Freedom lose Pier 36, it is free to dock elsewhere and keep sailing — and also free, unfortunately, to keep trying to trick tourists to believe that they are about to travel to Liberty Island.
But wherever they land, the hawkers have zero right to swarm city parks and plazas. These relentless pests are booked on a one-way ticket out.