Pol wants some vendors allowed back on bridge

After New York City ejected vendors who had clogged the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, a Manhattan lawmaker is pushing for a compromise to let some of the vendors back on.

But the lawmaker, Councilwoman Gale Brewer, faced some early resistance Wednesday at a Council hearing, where both Mayor Adams’ administration and a councilman whose Brooklyn district sits under the bridge said the span should stay off-limits to vendors.

The city ordered the vendors off the bridge on Jan. 3, clearing a crush of sellers who had been primarily hawking wares on the cramped pedestrian level of the suspension bridge’s Manhattan side.

Vending on the Brooklyn Bridge increased after bikers were relocated in 2021 from the pedestrian level to a separate bike lane on the side of the bridge. The pedestrian walkway grew dangerously overcrowded, and Adams’ administration has been praised for ending an increasingly chaotic circus of vending.

But some have suggested the move was unfair to licensed vendors who made a living on the bridge.

Brewer, an Upper West Side Democrat who has said the city was right to address the problem, has nonetheless judged the city went too far in sweeping all vendors off the bridge.

She has suggested that licensed vendors should still be allowed on the bridge if they are sufficiently spaced out.

She introduced legislation that would allow vendors back on, but would require them to space out by a set amount — perhaps 20 feet. The plan, if authorized, would supersede the mayor’s rule.

Officials with the Police Department and the Transportation Department expressed concerns at Wednesday’s hearing that any additional vending could inhibit public safety.

“The administration opposes this bill as drafted as it would allow vending back on the pedestrian walkways of bridges,” testified Margaret Forgione, the first deputy commissioner of the Transportation Department. “We made this change for public safety, and allowing vendors back would make our city less safe.”

The Brooklyn Bridge is a sensitive target for possible terrorism, and can often be the site of everyday crime, so additional congestion on its walkway — and allowing vendors to leave tarps and other equipment on it overnight — can make the bridge more difficult to protect, said Deputy Inspector Kevin Cain of the Police Department’s Patrol Services Bureau.