In talking with reporters on Tuesday about the city’s new rule banning vendors from the pedestrian walkway of the bridge (the rule took effect Wednesday), Mayor Eric Adams and city officials expressed shock and disbelief about the dangerous crowds they observed with their own eyes.

“I was driving across the Brooklyn Bridge; I think it was Saturday. I called Fabien, and I said, ‘Can you get a photographer out here to take a picture of this bridge?’ People couldn’t walk,” Adams told reporters.

Adams said that clearing vendors from the bridge was not only a sanitary issue but a public safety issue. “People were jumping over the bridge onto the bike path because we came to a blockage … So, if you needed an emergency egress to get off the bridge, people would have trampled over each other.”

He added, “Imagine someone yells a fire, someone hears a car backfire and thinks it’s a shot. You have a stampede on that bridge.”

Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi said that the number of pedestrians crossing the bridge increased from about 17,000 on an average weekday in 2021 to 34,000 in 2022. “And the numbers continue to rise. This is something that’s extremely positive and is a real sign of life in New York City. But it’s also a safety concern,” she said. “It’s crowded on a regular day. If there’s an emergency, it’s a life‑threatening experience.“

At its widest point, the bridge is 16 feet. At its narrowest, it’s five feet, she said.

Scary photos on social media

Social media over the weekend was filled with photos of people crammed together on the bridge and warning others to stay away.

Kathy Park Price posted a photo on Twitter of a seemingly endless crowd of humanity massed on the walkway on Monday, Jan. 1. “The Brooklyn Bridge is a stampede risk right now. Doesn’t seem like anyone monitors the crowds. It was scary,” she wrote.

“Stay away from the Brooklyn Bridge. There are too many vendors and tourists. We were stuck in one place for at least 45 minutes with kids and elderly. Could have been a tragedy. Called 911 twice,” wrote Tor “Solar Fred” Valenza. He notified the NYPD via Twitter, saying, “This shouldn’t have happened. There needs to be some kind of crowd control.”

Someone named “Canarsie_Pol” posted photos on Dec. 29 showing terrifying crowds. “Here was the view from up top. It was awful. And just because people would jam their way over and prevent the other side from moving. It was pure selfish idiocy!!” they posted.

Adams casts himself as standing between order and chaos

Adams sounded a defensive tone about the city’s move to remove vendors from city bridges, and the press conference seemed to go a bit off the rails when he appeared to cast those urging some degree of moderation on the issue — such as allowing licensed veterans to continue vending on the bridge — as enemies of public safety.

“We need order in this city,” Adams told reporters. He claimed that “a small numerical minority of electeds in the city” are implementing the same policies that have been implemented in some other (unnamed) cities, “And we are witnessing the just dismantling of public safety in those cities.”

The mayor, who is himself embroiled in several state and federal investigations, implied he was a last bulwark standing between chaos and order.

“We have been successful here in holding back some of those policies. But the policies that are being implemented: public urination, public injection of drugs, vendors everywhere, crime, we’ve been fighting back, this administration. But if we’re saying that we want our city to go down the route of other cities, there’s not much we can do.”