The 11-page online petition, directed at elected officials and signed by nearly 400 Dumbo residents, included a list of demands one might expect from folks living in a neighborhood so dense with tourists that it’s sometimes hard to push a stroller down the sidewalk: restrictions on street vendors and tour buses, for instance, and a crowd-management plan. “From a governance standpoint, we seem to be treated like any other neighborhood — like Cobble Hill or Boerum Hill — and we are actually more like Times Square,” said Jamel Talbi, the 15-year Dumbo resident and condo-board president who launched the petition earlier this month. “We are at our wits’ end.” Talbi should know; he lives on the cobblestoned stretch of Washington Street leading from the Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian walkway to the waterfront that is said to be the most Instagrammed location on the planet.
While the petition is just the latest in an ongoing crusade to tame the streets, tension in the neighborhood is building up, and for good reason. “People are anxious because there is a World Cup village under the Brooklyn Bridge this summer, the 250th anniversary of our independence, the Macy’s fireworks, and the tall ships coming,” said Lincoln Restler, the city councilperson representing the area. “People in Dumbo already feel frustrated about how poorly tourism is managed in the neighborhood, and they look ahead to June and July and say, ‘Holy shit! This is going to get a lot worse!’” Some residents are now taking cues from global anti-tourism tactics — such as Amsterdam’s “Stay Away” campaign discouraging British tourists from traveling to the city to party and Seoul’s visiting hours for Bukchon Hanok Village — and suggesting measures far beyond the usual.
