DOT & Cops Reclaim Manhattan Bridge Plaza for the People—No More a Shantytown

Shout it loud and proud New Yorkers: the Manhattan Bridge is back!

Not that it went anywhere geographically but the should-be-stunning Manhattan Bridge Plaza at its base—opened in 1909 and designed by architects Carrère and Hastings in the still impressive City Beautiful style— has so often devolved into a colonnaded, drug ravaged shantytown that people who’ve never seen it otherwise might think that’s its function was always thus: al fresco congregant housing; great views of Canal Street and the Bowery; BYOT—bring your own tarp.

Straus News, following the late Conor Skelding’s intrepid November 2021 bridge beat work for the New York Post— a time which included drugs, various stolen goods and even a stolen dog— picked up the story this past summer.

In August, our headline read Manhattan Bridge Plaza Homeless Do as They Please—Despite Repeated Efforts to Remove Them. It was clear, however, that this wasn’t a homeless issue per se.

Rather, like conditions in parts of nearby Sarah D. Roosevelt Park, a primary culprit is drugs—as evinced by discarded needles that are often found there, and which city workers have to don protective safety gear to remove.

If nothing else one might think empathy for the municipal laboring class whose jobs it is to tend to these public spaces would limit their dissolution. Likewise the burdens such a “community” places on the local Chinatown merchants and residents.

Rarely does this seem to be the case, however.

While two of the Plaza’s stakeholders, Councilman Christopher Marte and the Department of Transportation did not respond to prior Straus News requests for comment, cops from the nearby 5th Precinct, other police and even Mayor Adams didn’t shy from the subject.

Their conclusion: as soon as you move the homeless, and the drugs, out—they move right back in, sometimes within days, often within hours.

Hizzoner, who would soon be embattled in so many ways, was as good as his word and not long after addressing the issue during a mid-August press conference, the Plaza, once again, was again cleared out, albeit with open needles left behind.

Hopefully, sightseers, in the few hours they had to enjoy the Plaza before the addicts inevitably returned, had situational awareness enough to stay clear of the residual dangers.

And so it seemed the story would continue.

Sisyphus—played here by a revolving cast of NYPD, DOT, Sanitation Department and Department of Homeless Services workers—rolls the rock up, and, sure as God made little green apples, the rock rolls right back down.

And yet, this time, that’s not what happened.

Though their work appears not to have been announced, let alone heralded, things are different, as Straus News observed.

As of mid-October, the Manhattan Bridge Plaza explicitly belongs to the Department of Transporation, with black spray-painted stencils in both the south and north side colonnades informing us so: NYC DOT PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING.

Also, on the south side of the Plaza, a multi-layered chicane of metal NYPD crowd barriers has been set up to discourage resettlement. If itself rather unsightly, as an intermediate step to finally reclaim the Plaza for the people, it’s a welcome development.

Whether this encourages the (at press time) former denizens of Manhattan Bridge Plaza to avail themselves of the city’s myriad social services devoted to drug and homeless issues remains to be seen.

For now, however, come to Bowery and Canal Street and see for yourself what couldn’t be done before. Don’t worry about those signs— NYC DOT PROPERTY NO TRESPASSING. If anyone asks any questions, just take out your camera and tell ‘em you’re a time traveler and Mayor George B. McClellan Jr. sent you.

City Beautiful then, City Beautiful today, selah.