Northeast
NYC bans Brooklyn Bridge vendors after mayor says holiday season 'turned dangerous'
- Vendors on the Brooklyn Bridge are set to be banned from selling souvenirs as of Wednesday to alleviate overcrowding on the pedestrian walkway.
- The decision, implemented by New York City Mayor Eric Adams, comes after holiday season crowds led to dangerous situations, he says.
- The ban will apply to all city bridges, but the Brooklyn Bridge in particular faces issues due to a high number of vendors.
Visitors to New York City hoping to take home a souvenir from the Brooklyn Bridge will now have to settle for a photograph, as vendors are about to be banned from the iconic span.
The new rule, which goes into effect Wednesday, aims to ease overcrowding on the bridge’s heavily trafficked pedestrian walkway, where dozens of trinket sellers currently compete for space with tourists and city commuters.
As crowds flocked to the bridge over the holiday season, the situation turned dangerous, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams. He pointed to videos that showed pedestrians leaping from the elevated walkway onto a bike lane several feet below in order to bypass a human traffic jam.
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“It’s not only a sanitary issue, it’s a public safety issue,” Adams said on Tuesday. “People would’ve trampled over each other. We need order in this city. That is one of our major landmarks.”
Vendors on the Brooklyn Bridge display their wares in New York, on Jan. 2, 2024. New York City will ban vendors from the Brooklyn Bridge starting on Jan. 3, 2024. The move is intended to ease overcrowding on the East River crossing, where dozens of souvenir sellers currently compete for space with tourists and city commuters. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
The new rules will apply to all of the city’s bridges — though none have close to as many vendors as the 140-year-old Brooklyn Bridge, which is often lined with tables offering phone cases, knock-off Yankees caps, novelty license plates and more.
Those who sell items on the bridge acknowledge that vendors have proliferated in recent years, driven by relaxed enforcement during the coronavirus pandemic and the availability of low-priced merchandise. A decision two years ago to relocate cyclists to a lane of the roadway also freed up space for stalls.
In the middle span of the bridge, entrepreneurs have now set up nearly a dozen rotating selfie platforms where tourists can pay to take panoramic photos.
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MD Rahman, who has sold hot dogs and pretzels out of a cart on the bridge for 15 years, said he understands the need to crack down on the illicit vendors. But he criticized the city’s plan as overly broad, since it also applies to veteran sellers, like himself, who hold mobile vending licenses.
“The problem is the illegal and unlicensed people selling things up there,” Rahman said, pointing to the newer group of vendors in the middle of the bridge. “To punish everyone, it’s crazy. I don’t know what is going to happen to my family now.”
In recent days, police officers have posted flyers in multiple languages across the bridge, telling vendors they will have to leave. But some had doubts about whether the city would actually follow through on the plan.
“Maybe I come back in a few weeks,” said Qiu Lan Liu, a vendor selling hats and T-shirts, many of them featuring the New York Police Department’s insignia, NYPD. “I’ll see what other people do.”
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As news spread of the coming ban, some tourists said they were taking advantage of the low-priced souvenirs while they were still available. Ana Souza, an Oklahoma resident, proudly held an “I Love New York” tote she’d found for just $10, a fraction of the price she’d seen at brick-and-mortar shops.
Jenny Acuchi was visiting New York from Oakland, California. “It’s a little crowded, but not as much as I expected,” she said. “The thing that makes it crowded is that everyone is taking photos.”
Among the supporters of the new rules were some disability rights advocates, who said the ban would immediately improve access for wheelchair users. In a statement, the city’s transportation chief Ydanis Rodriguez celebrated the improvements to an attraction he dubbed “America’s Eiffel Tower.”
Rashawn Prince, who uses the bridge to sells copies of his self-published book, “How to Roll a Blunt for Dummies!” said he was unmoved by the comparison.
“I’ve been to the Eiffel Tower,” Prince said. “There’s vendors there, too.”
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The shooting at Brown University exposed a major gap for a recently opened “real time crime center” in Providence that costs over $1 million, but didn’t include surveillance video from the college campus.
Two people were killed and nine others were injured during a shooting at Brown University at around 4 p.m. Saturday at the Barus and Holley engineering building. Officials said a person of interest was initially taken into custody, but was later released after evidence didn’t indicate he was involved.
Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and Ella Cook were killed in Saturday’s shooting. Cook, 19, was the vice president of the Brown University College Republicans.
In August, the City of Providence, where Brown University is located, announced it had launched a “real time crime center” that has access to hundreds of surveillance cameras — but none at the Ivy League institution.
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This combo image made with photos provided by the FBI and the Providence, Rhode Island, Police Department shows a person of interest in the shooting that occurred at Brown University on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025. (FBI/Providence Police Department via AP)
“Since my first year as Mayor, elevating public safety in every neighborhood has been my top priority. This investment in Providence’s Real Time Crime Center strengthens our ability to protect neighborhoods and improve quality-of-life for everyone in Providence,” Mayor Brett Smiley said when he announced the center’s launch.
The “real time crime center” was funded with a $1 million grant from the federal government. Providence also agreed to pay Axon Fusus $750,000 to run the system through 2028, which could be extended, according to the Rhode Island Current.
Providence Police Department Detective Maj. David Lapatin told the Providence Journal that the newly built center didn’t include any video feeds at Brown University when the shooting took place.
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A law enforcement official walks past articles of clothing on a sidewalk near an entrance to Brown University, Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Providence, Rhode Island, during the shooting investigation. (Steven Senne/AP Photo)
Police gather outside an entrance to Brown University on Saturday, during the investigation of the shooting. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)
Additionally, Lapatin said the crime center didn’t have access to any camera feeds from homes located close to the shooting.
Eric O’Neill, a cybersecurity expert and former FBI operative, told Fox News Digital it would have been helpful if Brown University allowed the crime center to use their security camera feeds.
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A police vehicle rests at an intersection near crime scene tape at Brown University, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Providence, Rhode Island, following the shooting at the university. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
“It certainly would have been nice if Brown had subscribed to the data center because my understanding is that there’s real-time monitoring, which would have meant that someone would have seen the activity on the cameras and perhaps law enforcement could have been alerted earlier,” O’Neill said.
Police have released several videos and images of a person of interest, but haven’t yet identified or arrested the individual.
Fox News Digital reached out to Brown University and the City of Providence for comment.
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Somehow, in the midst of all the injuries the Boston Red Sox dealt with last season, shortstop Trevor Story stayed healthy.
Story played 163 games in his first three years as a Red Sox, then played 157 this past year. He led the team in home runs, RBIs, and stolen bases. His defense tailed off in September, but he was also leading the charge on offense by the time the Sox got to the playoffs.
Entering his age-33 season, Story has been vehemently endorsed as the starting shortstop by the Red Sox organization, specifically chief baseball officer Craig Breslow. Are the Red Sox counting too heavily on the veteran repeating his production from a year ago?
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Story coming back to earth this season?
On Thursday, MLB.com published a “snapshot” of the Red Sox’s Fangraphs projections for this season, and the No. 1 thing that stood out from the list was Story and the Boston shortstop group being projected for 2.0 WAR, which ranked 27th out of the 30 teams in baseball.
“This projection and ranking might be a bit surprising, considering that Trevor Story had a resurgent 2025 season with a .741 OPS, 25 home runs, and 31 stolen bases and finished with 3.0 WAR,18th-best among shortstops,” wrote MLB.com’s Brent Maguire.
“Projection systems, however, are notoriously conservative and are looking beyond just the previous season. Story was oft-injured and unproductive during his first three years with the Red Sox before 2025 and with him entering his age-33 season, there are still some questions about his production in 2026.”
Certainly, one projection does not mean Story is doomed to have a bad year, and if anything, he might have a better defensive season if he stays healthy, because he’ll be better conditioned for those final weeks of the year.
However, this underscores the need for the Red Sox to land another big bat, and ideally, two. The odds that Story leads the team in all of those offensive categories again feel slim, and even if he does, that likely means Boston’s offense was fairly pedestrian.
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Two men were killed in a shooting along Linnview Avenue in Pittsburgh’s Carrick neighborhood on Thursday, authorities said.
The shooting happened around 5:15 p.m. on the 1200 block of Linnview Avenue, according to a Pittsburgh Public Safety spokesperson.
When first responders arrived at the scene, they found two men with multiple gunshot wounds on the sidewalk about 10 feet apart. Both men were taken to local hospitals in grave condition, but they were pronounced dead when they arrived, Pittsburgh Public Safety’s spokesperson said. The victims were 23 and 27 years old. However, the victims have not been identified as of Thursday night.
Officials said the suspect fled on foot down Nobles Lane. No other information was released about the suspect. No arrests have been made as of Thursday night.
Neighbors told KDKA they heard at least six gunshots. Investigators at the scene recovered two firearms, the spokesperson for Pittsburgh Public Safety said. Police are investigating.
“At one point, I heard what sounded like fireworks,” one neighbor said.
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