Guests to New York Metropolis hoping to take house a memento from the Brooklyn Bridge will now must accept {a photograph}, as distributors are about to be banned from the enduring span.
The brand new rule, which matches into impact Wednesday, goals to ease overcrowding on the bridge’s closely trafficked pedestrian walkway, the place dozens of trinket sellers at the moment compete for area with vacationers and metropolis commuters.
As crowds flocked to the bridge over the vacation season, the state of affairs turned harmful, in accordance with New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams. He pointed to movies that confirmed pedestrians leaping from the elevated walkway onto a motorcycle lane a number of toes under as a way to bypass a human site visitors jam.
“It’s not only a sanitary issue, it’s a public safety issue,” Adams stated on Tuesday. “People would’ve trampled over each other. We need order in this city. That is one of our major landmarks.”
The brand new guidelines will apply to all the metropolis’s bridges — although none have near as many distributors because the 140-year-old Brooklyn Bridge, which is usually lined with tables providing cellphone circumstances, knock-off Yankees caps, novelty license plates and extra.
Those that promote gadgets on the bridge acknowledge that distributors have proliferated lately, pushed by relaxed enforcement through the coronavirus pandemic and the provision of low-priced merchandise. A call two years in the past to relocate cyclists to a lane of the roadway additionally freed up area for stalls.
Within the center span of the bridge, entrepreneurs have now arrange almost a dozen rotating selfie platforms the place vacationers pays to take panoramic photographs.
MD Rahman, who has bought scorching canines and pretzels out of a cart on the bridge for 15 years, stated he understands the necessity to crack down on the illicit distributors. However he criticized the town’s plan as overly broad, because it additionally applies to veteran sellers, like himself, who maintain cellular merchandising licenses.
“The problem is the illegal and unlicensed people selling things up there,” Rahman stated, pointing to the newer group of distributors in the course of the bridge. “To punish everyone, it’s crazy. I don’t know what is going to happen to my family now.”
In current days, law enforcement officials have posted flyers in a number of languages throughout the bridge, telling distributors they must depart. However some had doubts about whether or not the town would really observe by way of on the plan.
“Maybe I come back in a few weeks,” stated Qiu Lan Liu, a vendor promoting hats and T-shirts, a lot of them that includes the New York Police Division’s insignia, NYPD. “I’ll see what other people do.”
As information unfold of the approaching ban, some vacationers stated they have been benefiting from the low-priced souvenirs whereas they have been nonetheless out there. Ana Souza, an Oklahoma resident, proudly held an “I Love New York” tote she’d discovered for simply $10, a fraction of the worth she’d seen at brick-and-mortar retailers.
Jenny Acuchi was visiting New York from Oakland, California. “It’s a little crowded, but not as much as I expected,” she stated. “The thing that makes it crowded is that everyone is taking photos.”
Among the many supporters of the brand new guidelines have been some incapacity rights advocates, who stated the ban would instantly enhance entry for wheelchair customers. In a press release, the town’s transportation chief Ydanis Rodriguez celebrated the enhancements to an attraction he dubbed “America’s Eiffel Tower.”
Rashawn Prince, who makes use of the bridge to sells copies of his self-published e-book, “How to Roll a Blunt for Dummies!” stated he was unmoved by the comparability.
“I’ve been to the Eiffel Tower,” Prince stated. “There’s vendors there, too.”
