Fasten a 'Love Lock' to the Brooklyn Bridge, Get Fined $100

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, NY — Hundreds of symbolically interlocked souls across the world cried out in anguish Friday morning, as a roster of top New York City officials staged a mass cutting of the many "love locks" fastened to fencing along the Brooklyn Bridge Promenade.

Members of the press were invited to watch the slaughter.

From now on, officials announced at the anti-love lock press conference, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) will be authorized to issue a $100 fine to anyone who fastens a lock to the bridge — four times the fine for drinking in public.

"I commend the Department of Transportation’s proactive approach to protecting the Brooklyn Bridge, a New York City Landmark, and one of the most iconic suspension bridges in the world,” Meenakshi Srinivasan, chair of the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission said as city workers in neon-yellow vests and hats obliterated the carefully placed locks with power tools.

Among those in the anti-lock camp: Brooklyn's borough president, Manhattan's borough president, the NYPD's transportation bureau chief, a member of the New York State Assembly and — star of the show — DOT Commissioner Polly Trottenberg, the top transportation official in the largest city in America.

“A walk on the Brooklyn Bridge can be one of the most beautiful and romantic anywhere in the world,” Trottenberg said at Friday's presser. “However, with the bridge now loaded with so-called ‘love locks,’ we face costly maintenance headaches and serious potential dangers for car traffic."

Taxpayers spent $116,000 for city crews to remove 11,000 love locks from the Brooklyn Bridge in 2015 alone, according to the DOT.

And just one month ago, "a wire attached to an overhead street light on the bridge snapped under the weight of the dozens of locks that had been attached to it," the DOT said in a statement sent to press. (Action shot below.) "The left lane of Brooklyn-bound traffic on the bridge was closed that day for two hours while emergency crews made repairs."

NYC's most iconic bridge isn't the only bridge in the world to fall victim to love locks, as pointed out Friday by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer. “As odd as it sounds, love locks can pose a structural problem and even a safety hazard, as the City of Paris found when fencing on the famous Pont des Arts was crushed by the extra weight of love locks," she said.

In place of the locks, Brooklyn Bridge pedestrians will now notice a series of DOT signs lining the promenade, printed with questionable puns such as "No locks... no kidding!" and, according to the Associated Press, "No lock, yes lox," above a picture of a bagel and lox and a crossed-out padlock.

Photos courtesy of NYC DOT