So here is the situation in Dumbo, which is what they're calling the neighborhood under the Manhattan Bridge over in Brooklyn, and which the tourism industry has decided is the Times Square of the outer boroughs. You got people lined up six deep on Washington Street every single morning waiting to take the exact same photograph. The one with the bridge framed perfect between the buildings. You know the one. Your aunt has it as her screensaver. Everybody's aunt has it as her screensaver.
And the people who actually live there — who pay the rent, who walk the dog on those wet cobblestones at seven in the morning, who are trying to get a cup of coffee without stepping over a ring-light tripod — those people are done being polite about it. According to reporting by Curbed, residents have gone full guerrilla. We are talking creative deployment of personal property. Lawn chairs in the sightline. Slow strollers. Strategic parking. Somebody's got a neighbor who allegedly walks his very large, very loud dog directly into the shot every time a tour group sets up. The man is a folk hero.
Now. Here is where my cousin Sal comes in, because Sal has been sitting on a borrowed refrigerated truck for three weeks and he needs a reason to move it, and I told him I found one. The play was simple: park the truck on Water Street, block the sightline from the good angle, charge a modest coordination fee to locals who want the tourists rerouted, split the take. Sal knows a guy who knows the loading dock schedule. We had a clipboard. We had orange vests. We had what I considered to be a credible cover story involving a catering event that did not technically exist.
Here is the thing about Dumbo that I did not fully account for from my desk in the borough. The tourists are not rerouted by a truck. The tourists go around the truck. The tourists climb on the truck. One tourist offered Sal forty dollars to stand next to the truck holding a broom for what she described as an “authentic Brooklyn content moment.” Sal took the forty dollars. He is no longer my partner in this enterprise.
Meanwhile the real story sits right there on those cobblestones. This is what happens when a working neighborhood gets turned into a backdrop. The zoning says mixed-use. The reality says the mix is now seventy percent content creation. Residents are filing complaints with Community Board 2, pushing for crowd management protocols, asking the city to look at street-use permits for commercial photography. These are real asks. The city has not moved fast on them. The city does not move fast on things that do not affect Midtown.
Sal has since rented the truck out for a wedding. The coordination fee revenue was zero dollars. The orange vests are in my car. The tourists are still on Washington Street. Same photograph. Eleven thousand likes.