Brooklynites living in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge are fuming over the crowds of tourists being bused in for photo ops for their Instagram feeds – bringing with them hoards of pesky vendors, trash and rats.
The issue has been increasingly worsening as sites such as Instagram and TikTok tout the world-class view in trendy DUMBO — and out-of-towners are rushing to snap themslves in front of it.
“They’re not really respectful of everyone else in the neighborhood – they’re more concerned about taking selfies in front of the bridge,” griped 15-year resident and local dog walker Audra Gullo.
“There’s garbage on the streets, there’s more food vendors. … Sometimes there’s 10 to 15 [tour] buses lined up,” Gullo said. “All of that goes hand in hand.”
Another resident said, “They’ve basically taken over Washington Street.
“When you drive down the street, they’ll pound on your car, and they won’t get out of the street.”
The crowds began to get out of hand about five years ago, according to several residents – who added that local calls to address the issues they’re bringing with them have fallen on deaf ears.
“We’re losing the essence of our neighborhood,” a resident said during a November virtual town-hall meeting addressing quality-of-life issues with local pols. “The neighborhood is trending … toward something like Times Square.”
City Council member Lincoln Restler, who represents the area, stressed during the meeting that tourism is an important part of the neighborhood.
“We’ve got to figure out how to accommodate the people who are visiting, the people who live there and people who work there,” Restler said.
But at least some locals told The Post that the cost of even briefly hosting the out-of-towners isn’t worth it.
It can take up to 20 minutes just to get out of the several-block radius now while dodging tourists, buses and Ubers, a resident said.
Eight-year DUMBO resident Rachel Johnston told The Post she has seen tourists contribute to the local economy but still considers the rise in tourism “a nuisance” as “cafes get full and you can’t walk down the street.
“The Instagrammers should definitely go away,” she said. “I just find it really obnoxious.”
Gullo added, “A few residents in [a nearby] building have been complaining about four or five food vendors here, and there’s more rats – why are they giving licenses to so many food carts?”
A representative from City Hall did not return a Post request for comment.
DUMBO Business Improvement District President Alexandria Sica told The Post in a statement, “It’s very important that the city enforce the laws and curb unlawful vending.
“It’s basic, and the City needs to do its job,” Sica said.
“Are there tourists on Washington Street? Yes, it’s literally picture-perfect,” she said. “But walk a block over, and the vibe is very local.”
French tourist Anais Schoendorf, who was in the area for the iconic Manhattan Bridge shot, said, “It’s a great view — we found it on TikTok.
“It’s beautiful,” the visitor said.
Teresa Peng and Zona Chen, tourists from Shanghai, China, said it was a no-brainer to come to the corner of Washington and Water streets for the same view on a below-freezing Wednesday morning — even if they were “struggling” to take pictures with dozens of other tourists in the backdrop.
“Everybody’s here,” Chen, 30, said, adding: “[We found it] on Instagram.”
Peng, 29, said, “I went here three or four years ago, and it was also like this – so crowded.”
The number of local photo-op-seeking tourists has grown so much that stair-risers have since been installed at the corner of Water and Washington streets, to “stack” a half-dozen selfie-takers in the same spot.
“The tourism issues … it’s impossible to walk down the sidewalk in some cases,” said a DUMBO property owner and town-hall attendee named Elisa.
“We have people leaving the neighborhood because they can’t stand it anymore, or people coming to look at property saying ‘I don’t want to live in an environment like this,’ ” she said.
Gullo said she would like to see an increased police presence along the waterfront, as well as a reduction in the number of street vendors and tourists alike crowding the sidewalks.
The city Department of Transportation is working on a traffic study, slated to wrap in a few months, to improve safety in the area, Brooklyn DOT Commissioner Keith Bray said at the meeting – pointing out that “overtourism isn’t happening just in DUMBO, it’s happening all over the world.”
One of the longtime residents said she hopes for “sustainable tourism,” calling the DOT study “gaslighting at its finest.
“They’re not driving any economic [benefits],” she said of the shutterbug crowds. “And City Hall has completely ignored residents, and they have prioritized tourism.”
A city interagency task force on illegal vending has “not been as effective as we’d hoped,” Restler acknowledged at the town hall.
“My office has been working with the DUMBO Business Improvement District and neighbors to push for more attention and assistance from city agencies,” Restler added to The Post. “We formally requested that City Hall create a vendor enforcement task force to address lack of pedestrian space and the food carts that often fail to move days on end.”
But ultimately, he said at the meeting, “we don’t have the ability to stop tourists from coming into the neighborhood.”