{"id":830080,"date":"2026-05-29T12:51:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T12:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/830080\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T12:51:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T12:51:26","slug":"dumbo-residents-turn-to-guerilla-tactics-to-fight-tourism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/830080\/","title":{"rendered":"Dumbo Residents Turn to Guerilla Tactics to Fight Tourism"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n Tourists on Washington Street in Dumbo, said to be the most Instagrammed spot on the planet.
\n Photo: Anne Kadet\n <\/p>\n

The 11-page online petition<\/a>, 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\u2019s sometimes hard to push a stroller down the sidewalk: restrictions on street vendors and tour buses, for instance, and a crowd-management plan. \u201cFrom a governance standpoint, we seem to be treated like any other neighborhood \u2014 like Cobble Hill or Boerum Hill \u2014 and we are actually more like Times Square,\u201d said Jamel Talbi, the 15-year Dumbo resident and condo-board president who launched the petition earlier this month. \u201cWe are at our wits\u2019 end.\u201d 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<\/a> on the planet.<\/p>\n

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. \u201cPeople are anxious because there is a World Cup village under the Brooklyn Bridge<\/a> this summer, the 250th anniversary of our independence, the Macy\u2019s fireworks, and the tall ships coming,\u201d said Lincoln Restler, the city councilperson representing the area. \u201cPeople in Dumbo already feel frustrated about how poorly tourism is managed in the neighborhood, and they look ahead to June and July and say, \u2018Holy shit! This is going to get a lot worse!\u2019\u201d Some residents are now taking cues from global anti-tourism tactics \u2014 such as Amsterdam\u2019s \u201cStay Away\u201d campaign<\/a> discouraging British tourists from traveling to the city to party and Seoul\u2019s visiting hours for Bukchon Hanok Village<\/a> \u2014 and suggesting measures far beyond the usual.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n Food trucks lined up outside a Dumbo apartment building.
\n Photo: Courtesy of Pamela Alabaster\n <\/p>\n

Jimmy Ng, a 13-year Washington Street resident and member of the neighborhood\u2019s Dumbo Action Committee, is not one of them, even though he has a firsthand view of the action. \u201cMy window is right above where all the tourists take their photos between Plymouth and Water Street,\u201d he said. His own efforts to calm the scene have been gentle. Tourists who scanned the QR code he once posted in his window, for example, were taken to a web page he\u2019d created advising them to be mindful of the residents living overhead. (He also warned them about the local Mister Softee truck selling $14 cones.)\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m a little annoyed, but mostly I feel lucky,\u201d he said. \u201cTourists are part of life. We live in New York, and we wouldn\u2019t choose to live here if we had a problem with volume and scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

But some of his neighbors are losing patience and suggesting more extreme measures. \u201cLike the people with the water guns in Barcelona, or there is a famous picture spot where you can take pictures of Mount Fuji in Japan \u2014 the village blocked the view,\u201d Ng said. He\u2019s heard it all. \u201cJust put up huge screens to hide views of the bridges\u201d was a suggestion recently posted on the Dumbo sub-Reddit. \u201cProblem solved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Others want to borrow a tactic from Venice, which has famously instituted an entry fee<\/a> for day-trippers. \u201cI think we should start selling tourist passes for certain dollar amounts per day, whether it\u2019s $10 or five dollars,\u201d was another suggestion on Reddit. And at a community meeting last month, some residents called for regulations barring outsiders from the area. \u201cThe implication was that we can allow certain people into the neighborhood but not others,\u201d said Restler. \u201cThat\u2019s a slippery slope, and I don\u2019t want to live in a city, frankly, where that\u2019s a policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then there are the residents looking for ideas much closer to home to manage the crowds, such as Times Square\u2019s \u201cactivity zones\u201d that limit where ticket hawkers, vendors, and street performers can operate, along with pedestrian flow zones that discourage folks from congregating.<\/p>\n

Ng said some who are fed up are not waiting for a plan; instead, they\u2019re resorting to what he described as guerilla tactics \u2014 from approaching tourists to remind them that people live in the neighborhood or driving slowly through the throngs clogging the street while leaning on one\u2019s car horn to \u201cmore extreme things, like being really obnoxious to them, or slashing tires of the vendors that vend illegally,\u201d said Ng.<\/p>\n

On a sunny afternoon last June, Pamela Alabaster, an adjunct professor and consultant who moved into her Washington Street condo three years ago, decided she\u2019d had enough of the food trucks lining the block, including trucks for Cinnabon and Auntie Anne\u2019s pretzels. \u201cI have to burn candles in my apartment \u2014 they are right outside my window with the smell of cooking food and diesel fumes,\u201d she said. First she made a poster, writing, in all capital letters, \u201cWe don\u2019t want your food truck, your garbage, your smells, your cooking oil, your propane, in front of our home!\u201d Then she grabbed a beach chair and set up camp on the curb in front of her building. She sat for hours, reading white papers and sipping coffee, blocking her main nemesis \u2014 a halal food cart \u2014 from occupying the space. She was soon joined by several neighbors who set up chairs alongside her.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n Pamela Alabaster blocking food vendors from occupying the sidewalk.
\n Photo: Courtesy of Pamela Alabaster\n <\/p>\n

The food-cart operator got frustrated and angry, she recalled, the residents got angry back, and the vendor tried relocating his wagon up the block. But the chair brigade beat him there, occupying the new territory before he could unhitch his cart. \u201cThat\u2019s when the police got involved,\u201d said Alabaster. The cops asked the protesters to move along.<\/p>\n

That may have been the last beach-chair demonstration. Alabaster said she\u2019s moving to California at the end of June.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s too much money to live here under these conditions,\u201d she said. \u201cI love this neighborhood, I really do. It\u2019s a shame we\u2019ve pimped the neighborhood out.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few residents do see the perks of living in a tourist hub \u2014 some even benefit from it. Patrick Lin, a resident who grew up in the neighborhood and owns three local restaurants, said the influx of visitors from around the world improved the neighborhood for everyone. Aside from the famous pizzerias, he said, there used to be only a handful of restaurants in Dumbo, and there was nothing close to the dozens of shops and a supermarket it has currently. The tourists support stores and services far beyond what the local population of roughly 5,000 could on its own. Lin estimates half his customers at Em Vietnamese Bistro, Elephant District (a Thai restaurant), and the newly launched Aloha Alley are out-of-towners. And the overcrowding problem isn\u2019t as widespread as some make it out to be, he said. \u201cThe residents on Washington Street are the ones it bothers the most. Everyone who comes to Dumbo, they want that picture.\u201d But, he admits, \u201cI don\u2019t know what the solution could possibly be.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n While Washington Street is mobbed by tourists, the pedestrian plaza just two blocks away was largely desolate on a recent afternoon.
\n Photo: Anne Kadet\n <\/p>\n

While none of the more extreme measures suggested by residents have garnered much support, the city will soon be considering more modest proposals. Restler said he is about to introduce two bills to the City Council. One would create a Dumbo tourism management plan that would use signage and other methods to steer visitors streaming off the Brooklyn Bridge and from the York Street F station toward alternative attractions such as Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn Flea, Jane\u2019s Carousel, and the Time Out Market. \u201cIf we can disperse people more effectively, that would help,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n One proposal would have new signage dispersing tourists to lesser-known attractions like the Time Out Market rooftop.
\n Photo: Anne Kadet\n <\/p>\n

A second bill would ban street vendors from Washington Street between Front and York and create a new designated \u201cvendor plaza\u201d elsewhere \u2014 perhaps on the Old Fulton Street side of Anchorage Plaza running alongside the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. \u201cThe policies of the City Council are generally sympathetic to vendors,\u201d said Restler. \u201cNo-vending zones on their own are challenging, but a no-vending zone in conjunction with a vendor plaza \u2014 that\u2019s more palatable.\u201d<\/p>\n

It could take months for such legislation to pass, however. What about this summer? At a meeting with Congressman Dan Goldman at a Washington Street resident\u2019s apartment Wednesday evening, the Dumbonians (as they refer to themselves) were promised a neighborhood walk-through with agency officials \u201cso we can show them our pain points,\u201d said resident Melissa Rosenfield, who attended the meeting. \u201cThis feels like a positive next step.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in the short term? \u201cIt almost feels like a disaster movie where they know something is coming and they hunker down, or they make plans to not be in the area for a month,\u201d said Ng. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing any one person can do. It\u2019s every person for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n


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