Meet the vigilante cleaners pulling garbage and love locks off the Brooklyn Bridge

For years now, irritating tourists have come to New York City and polluted the Brooklyn Bridge by attaching locks to the fabled span, or even worse, tying their literal garbage to it.

Fixing this outrage is supposed to be the job of the Department of Transportation, but the agency tends to have a lot on its plate in normal times, much less during the worst blizzard and cold snap the city has dealt with in 10 years. Fortunately some New Yorkers have been stepping up to do more than issue virtual threats to bridge defacers, putting on some gloves and actually removing the trash and locks from the bridge, a problem on the span that astute Groove readers will recall inspired me to call for violence against perpetrators weeks ago.

“When the Brooklyn Bridge was built, it was heralded as the eighth wonder of the world,” said Brooklyn Heights resident Ellen Baum, who has been making regular trips on the bridge to cut garbage off the fencing next to the pedestrian path. “I said to someone the other day, ‘Would you go to Machu Picchu and just tie your dirty old receipt to a fence there? No, you wouldn't. So you shouldn't do it here either.’ ”