{"id":183144,"date":"2026-04-02T04:28:45","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T04:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/183144\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T04:28:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T04:28:45","slug":"nyc-is-so-broke-the-brooklyn-bridge-might-get-roommates-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/183144\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC is so broke, the Brooklyn Bridge might get roommates"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"An<\/p>\n

NYC is so broke, the Brooklyn Bridge might get roommates<\/p>\n

The City Council found money in the sofa cushions \u2014 or more precisely, under the Brooklyn Bridge.<\/p>\n

The panel is floating a cash-making budget-balancing scheme to rent out the world-famous span\u2019s vaults, which are underneath it, tucked inside its stone anchorages.<\/p>\n

\"There\u2019s<\/p>\n

There\u2019s gold in them thar Arches section of Gotham Park, beneath the Brooklyn Bridge in lower Manhattan, City Council members say. William C Lopez\/New York Post<\/p>\n

There is a total of 13,000 square feet of the space, which once hosted art shows but has been locked up since 2001.<\/p>\n

\"Some<\/p>\n

Some of the abandoned vaults were prepped to be used as nuclear disaster shelters in the 1960s. REUTERS<\/p>\n

The vaults are currently being used as a glorified parking garage for city-owned vehicles.<\/p>\n

But the council \u2014 in a $127 billion city budget proposal it pitched Wednesday as an alternative to Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s \u201ctax the rich\u2019\u2019 spending plan \u2014 said the Big Apple should slap a \u201cRent Me\u201d sign on the front of the vaults to raise much-needed cash.<\/p>\n

Follow live updates on Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s socialist agenda and the latest in NYC politics<\/a><\/p>\n

At average Manhattan rents, the city could rake in about $17 million a year if it fully leased the space, according to council estimates.<\/p>\n

The bridge\u2019s rented rooms could start coughing up millions of dollars as early as fiscal 2027, the council wrote in its budget response to Mamdani\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The City Council wants to rent out the iconic Brooklyn Bridge\u2019s hidden rooms to help plug the Big Apple\u2019s cash hole. Paul \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n

As part of their proposal, the council also suggested:<\/p>\n

The city Department of Parks and Recreation should tap yacht owners for more money by jacking up boat parking rates at the city\u2019s 15 marinas. Rates haven\u2019t been raised since 2012. The council\u2019s idea is to nudge city-run docks closer to private marina prices and squeeze about $1 million a year out of floating one-percenters.<\/p>\n

City parks could be used to draw more fancy foodies. The city would push for about 20 new \u201cdestination concessions\u201d in underused green spaces, with mini-food halls, bars and seating that could bring in about $10 million a year starting in 2027. The city has 400 concessions currently operating in parks, including a food hall at McCarren Parkhouse in Brooklyn, restaurants such as Tavern on the Green, the Clearview Caf\u00e9 and the Loeb Boathouse, plus numerous pushcarts selling hot dogs and pretzels, according to the parks department.<\/p>\n

But Mamdani\u2019s Transportation Department, for one, threw cold water on the council\u2019s bridge pitch..<\/p>\n

The department \u201copposes this first and foremost for security reasons,\u201d a rep told The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecondarily, the area serves as a necessary storage area for vehicles critical to maintaining our bridge infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Mamdani\u2019s preliminary budget released earlier this year, the mayor was intent on drawing down cash reserves and raising taxes to fix the city\u2019s budget gap.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s floated tax increases on New York City homeowners or residents making $1 million or more a year and successful businesses.<\/p>\n

The council is desperately pitching side-hustles to avoid implementing Mamdani\u2019s budget ideas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Council lays out an alternative path the City can follow, providing the necessary resources to fund all the spending priorities without having to resort to increasing taxes, reducing funding for critical services, or drawing down on reserves,\u201d the council wrote in unveiling its own plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NYC is so broke, the Brooklyn Bridge might get roommates The City Council found money in the sofa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,11198,100,99,301,9,24,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-183144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-brooklyn","9":"tag-brooklyn-bridge","10":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","11":"tag-brooklyn-news","12":"tag-city-council","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}