New York City evicts vendors from Brooklyn Bridge, ending a bustling tourist market to ease crowding

By JAKE OFFENHARTZ
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City has banned vendors from the Brooklyn Bridge. The change ends a bustling market that supplied cheap goods to tourists on the iconic crossing. Police officers were stationed in pairs Wednesday along the mile-long span. The ban is aimed at easing congestion on the bridge’s heavily trafficked pedestrian walkway. Sellers acknowledge the bridge has recently been inundated with tabletop businesses selling such items as New York-branded hats and keychains, but the vendors say the city’s total ban went too far. Mayor Eric Adams is defending the prohibition as necessary to ensure pedestrian safety and clamp down on what he described as growing disorder.