N.Y.C. Cracks Down on Brooklyn Bridge ‘Love Locks’
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The city’s transportation department is installing new signs and asking travel guide editors for help, as it looks to keep sweethearts from fastening padlocks to the landmark.
The removal of so-called love locks from the Brooklyn Bridge seems unlikely to stir much sweet sorrow among New York City transportation officials.
Lovebirds wanting to symbolize the lasting nature of their bond commonly affix the padlocks to bridges, fences and gates. But New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg says that, on the Brooklyn Bridge, this romantic gesture is causing “costly maintenance headaches and serious potential dangers for car traffic.”
Friday morning, a city crew gathered on the bridge to cut away hundreds of love locks.
Opened in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge crosses the East River between Brooklyn and lower Manhattan.
Locks first cropped up on the bridge back in 2009. At that time there were just a few dozen.
But, last year, the city removed upwards of 11,000 at a cost of around $116,000, according to the New York City Department of Transportation.
And, on Sept. 8, a wire attached to a street light on the bridge snapped under the weight of dozens of locks, prompting emergency repairs that caused a two-hour lane closure.
“There are many healthy ways to spread love in Brooklyn—weighing the historic Brooklyn Bridge down with locks and endangering the span as well as those who drive on it is not one of them,” Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said in a statement Friday.
In addition to removing locks, the city’s transportation department is taking other steps to combat the appearance of new ones.
Fresh signs will warn sweethearts that they could face a $100 fine if they’re caught attaching a lock to the structure. And Trottenberg drafted a letter to travel guidebook editors asking them to actively discourage people from leaving love locks or other mementos on the bridge.
According to the city’s DOT, people have in recent years begun fastening a variety of items to the landmark, including shoelaces, headphones and hair ties.
Love locks, typically decorated with lovers’ names or initials, are not unique to New York City. They’ve proven to troublesome in many other cities as well. Paris last year removed thousands of them from the Pont des Arts, a pedestrian bridge over the Seine River.
Bill Lucia is a Reporter for Government Executive’s Route Fifty and is based in Washington, D.C.
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