Brooklyn Bridge For Rent? Underside of Span Pitched as City Revenue Source

The City Council says that vaults and rooms like these beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, shown in an undated photo, could be rented to help close the city's revenue gap. Photo source: nygeschichte.blogspot.com 

The City Council thinks it’s found an extra $17 million deep in the underside of the Brooklyn Bridge. 

Given the going rate of Manhattan retail space, that’s what it claims the 13,000 square feet of hidden stone vaults and rooms are worth per year. So why not rent it out, the Council says.

The proposal is one of a number of revenue generating ideas in the City Council’s budget plan, a response to the Mamdani administration’s budget proposal. The $127 billion alternate budget claims to close the city’s funding gap. Unlike Mamdani’s, it would do so without raising taxes.

The plan’s $17 million figure assumes that every square foot of space is leased out. In fiscal 2027, according to the analysis, $8 million could be generated after the cost of infrastructure renovations that first year.

“The plan includes several creative solutions to generate additional revenue for the City while protecting essential services,” a Council spokesperson said in an email. “As with any proposal, if this initiative moves forward, it will go through a public process with meaningful engagement and input.” 

The proposed interior rooms on the Manhattan side, now sealed off, are along Frankfort Street and Avenue of the Finest, between Park Row and Pearl Street, a City Council spokesperson told the Trib. 

The city’s Department of Transportation, which has jurisdiction over the property, rejects the idea.

“First and foremost for security reasons,” a DOT spokesman said in an email. “Secondarily, the area serves as a necessary storage area for vehicles critical to maintaining our bridge infrastructure.”

If the city did get some income from those dark spaces, it wouldn’t be the first time.

To help defray the $15 million cost of the bridge, architect John Roebling provided in his design dark, cool spaces for wine cellars, NPR noted in a 2017 report on the bridge vaults. (This was also part of a solution to the problem of two wine companies, one on each side of the bridge, that had stood in the way of construction.) The wine vaults were built within the arched anchorages, beneath the bridge ramps. For a period before the end of Prohibition, the wine was moved out but returned until the city took over permanent management of the cellars, according to NPR.

Since 2001, the rooms have been closed to the public and used for storage.

The proposed area appears to include the section of the bridge adjacent to newly opened Gotham Park. Rosa Chang, co-founder and president of Gotham Park, said she would love to see the rooms opened to the public again. But not for the sake of city budget. Her group’s aspirations for some of that space include a branch of the New York Public Library and a Brooklyn Bridge museum. “I would want to prioritize public access, free public access for a free public amenity before you ever consider a revenue generating option,” she said.