Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
Brooklyn Borough President and progressive darling Antonio Reynoso has continued his corrupt predecessor’s practice of issuing unofficial parking placards to city workers, at least one of whom has illegally parked on the concrete plaza surrounding Borough Hall.
The Congressional hopeful vowed to end the corrupt car culture that characterized Eric Adams’s seven-year tenure as Brooklyn Beep. During his first week at Borough Hall, Reynoso actually banned parking on the building's plaza.
"The Borough Hall plaza has been rid of cars and returned to the people," he posted on X at the time, in a stark departure from Adams's decision to issue unofficial parking placards and allow certain staff members to park on the same plaza.
But Reynoso's office has confirmed to Streetsblog that it has printed unofficial parking placards and provided them to unidentified city workers at Borough Hall — the very same practice that continues to enable rampant and dangerous placard abuse throughout the city.
The smoking placard
Reynoso's initial effort to keep Borough Hall's plaza car-free seemed to work. We couldn't find any indication — in 311 data, in historical Google Street View imagery, in social media posts — that people freely parked on the Borough Hall plaza for the first four years of his tenure. Reynoso appeared to have ended the Adams-era practice for good.
But in early 2025, the X user McRib Hard Seltzer, who passes through Downtown Brooklyn every week, started to notice a worrying backslide around Borough Hall.
On Jan. 4, 2025, McRib Hard Seltzer photographed a Ram 1500 TRX with a suspicious New Jersey temporary tag illegally parked on the northeast side of Borough Hall. The very next day, McRib Hard Seltzer photographed a Nissan Armada — with a visibly defaced New York front plate, and more than $6,000 in traffic tickets — parked in the same illegal spot. The NYPD issued summonses in both cases.
With a handful of exceptions — such as credentialed press vans left on the plaza — illegal parking around Borough Hall seemed to abate once again.
Three weeks ago, however, events took a dramatic turn. On Jan. 27, McRib Hard Seltzer photographed the aforementioned Nissan Armada — with the same defaced New York license plate — illegally parked on the west side of Borough Hall. The NYPD closed out McRib Hard Seltzer's 311 complaint and said the responding officer "observed no criminal violation upon their arrival."
On Jan. 28, McRib Hard Seltzer photographed the same Nissan Armada, in the same illegal spot, and filed an identical 311 complaint. The NYPD closed out that one, too, for the same reason: "No criminal violation upon their arrival."
On Jan. 29, McRib Hard Seltzer once again photographed the Armada with the defaced front plate. This time, however, the vehicle displayed a brand-new accessory: a parking placard bearing the name, title, and signature of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. It closely resembled the unofficial placards that Eric Adams issued to his staff several years prior. McRib Hard Seltzer did not bother to file a complaint this time.
Instead, McRib Hard Seltzer emailed the office of the Brooklyn Borough President to complain about the parking situation around Borough Hall.
"Have you decided to go back on your earlier pledge and start authorizing drivers to park illegally on Cadman Plaza?" McRib Hard Seltzer asked. "If not, can you please see that this Nissan is ticketed and towed, and permanently revoke the driver's placard?"
Reynoso's office never responded. McRib Hard Seltzer followed up on Feb. 5, and still did not receive a response.
Reynoso’s explanation
At first glance, the fact that Reynoso is issuing his own parking placards should send shudders through the livable streets and anti-placard-corruption community. Adams’s willingness to ignore and mock city law to give himself and his staff free parking strongly foreshadowed his alleged willingness as mayor to violate major federal anti-corruption laws.
Furthermore, Reynoso represented a rejection of Adams's brand of old-school New York City politics. In 2008, he co-founded the New Kings Democrats as a progressive counterweight to the web of chits and favors — such as free parking — that defined the machine politics of the Brooklyn Democratic Party. The idea that Reynoso would succumb to the same temptation as his establishment predecessor undermines his entire theory of change.
But Reynoso's office told Streetsblog that his commitment to keeping Borough Hall plaza car-free hasn't wavered, and that he does not permit anyone — including staff members, press, and civilians — to park on the plaza. The office also pointed out that its staff works with police to ensure the plaza remains free of cars.
So what explains the placard that McRib Hard Seltzer encountered on Jan. 29? Mystery solved: Reynoso's office admitted that it created five parking placards to keep track of which vehicles are parked in one of the five legitimate spots on Joralemon Street that are reserved for the borough president.
It further explained that the illegally parked Nissan Armada bearing one of those placards did not belong to a direct employee of the borough president, but rather an employee of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services that was assigned to Borough Hall. That employee received permission to park in one of the five reserved spots on Joralemon Street, but chose instead to park on the plaza.
The involvement of DCAS should raise more alarm bells. The sprawling city agency was reportedly a hotbed of corruption and favor-trading during Adams's mayoralty. In any case, Reynoso's office said it permanently revoked that employee's placard privileges after seeing McRib Hard Seltzer's photos.
"We appreciate and welcome the input from vigilant New Yorkers who want to see Columbus Park maintained as a car-free, inviting space for pedestrians," said Luis Perez, a spokesperson for the Borough President. "The Borough President has been clear from Day One: the plaza outside Borough Hall is not a parking lot. That is true for the public as well as city employees, and we have taken corrective action to address the violation of our parking policies. Moving forward, we will continue advocating to relevant agencies to ensure more consistent monitoring and enforcement of parking violations.”
The dark arts of placard abuse
Reynoso's office was reluctant to share certain details about its placard program, including the names of its beneficiaries. But it did clarify that the borough president has printed its own unofficial placards every year of Reynoso's tenure, and pointed out that previous borough presidents — which include Adams and Marty Markowitz — followed the same practice.
The first problem with this is explanation is that, by their very nature, unofficial parking placards invite misuse. The second problem is that Reynoso positioned himself as a break from the past, not a continuation of it.
And it's still unclear why his office did not simply ask the Department of Transportation to issue five official parking placards. But it may have something to do with the city's longstanding practice of associating placards with particular license plates — a requirement that prevents functionaries such as borough presidents from issuing and revoking placards from their subordinates at will, or simply swapping them around as needed.
This raises an important question about all of those red-and-white "Authorized Vehicles Only" parking signs scattered across the five boroughs: Who exactly determines which vehicles are authorized, and why? And what is a cop supposed to do if they see an unofficial placard on the dash? (NYPD referred that question to DOT, which didn't respond.)
Placard Abuse, the seminal X.com account that documents the placard corruption in New York City, says that city rules allow only cars with official placards to be park in "authorized vehicle zones, when the organization or agency named on the permit is indicated on the signs."
"Some agencies ... have continued to illegally issue their own fake placards after the City Council limited [placard issuing] authority to just NYPD and DOT (plus NYC Schools by delegation from DOT)," they added. Placard Abuse noted that their members caught city workers using unofficial placards issued by Reynoso's office — albeit in legitimate parking spots — in 2022, 2023, and 2025.
The persistent ambiguity around placard enforcement goes to the heart of the problem that is placard abuse. It is not just about civil servants abusing their real or fake privileges to park their car wherever they want to. It is also about how the discretionary provision and revocation of parking placards — a tactic favored by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — creates endless opportunities to extract favors and enable corruption.
In the meantime, the lack of a placard may not stop the unidentified DCAS employee from testing the boundaries of parking law. Less than 30 minutes after Reynoso's office provided its statement to Streetsblog, McRib Hard Seltzer messaged Streetsblog on X.
"Just walked past Borough Hall right now," they wrote. "That white SUV [the Nissan Armada] is parked on the street in a space reserved for [Borough President] parking, but no longer has placard displayed on [the] dash."
McRib Hard Seltzer still filed a 311 service request. The resolution? You guessed it: "No criminal violation existed."
— With reporting by Dave Colon, Gersh Kuntzman and Max White
