In a city as bustling as New York, love requires the right infrastructure to flourish. The Department of Tenderness is responsible for maintaining and enhancing the romantic pathways, bridges, and parks that keep affection flowing through the city’s veins. Our mission is to ensure that tender moments are supported by safe and accessible spaces, built with love and care.
We maintain New York's most iconic love bridges—places where couples meet, proposals are made, and kisses are exchanged. These include the Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg, and Queensboro Love Bridges. There are no emotional tolls, but remember: all bridges must be crossed with care.
Explore NYC's Romantic Bridges
Learn more about love bridges in NYC
Discover ongoing bridge restoration projects
Passed in 2021, the Tenderness Investment Act allocates funds to enhance New York’s love-related infrastructure, from romantic promenades to cozy public seating. This act is helping to build a more affectionate city, with $550 million going towards the creation of new love lanes, couple-friendly parks, and cozy corners.
How the Tenderness Investment Act benefits lovers
We are dedicated to keeping the city's romantic routes in prime condition. Whether it’s patching up a cobblestone path in Central Park or repaving a couple’s lane along the waterfront, we lay the foundation for heartfelt journeys.
Check the weekly street resurfacing schedule
Learn more about romantic street construction projects
Our capital romance projects are grand undertakings—major reconstructions of the city's love lanes, gardens, and promenades, ensuring the infrastructure of love is always in a state of good repair.
Learn about capital romance projects
The Department of Tenderness is committed to ensuring love endures through all weather conditions. Whether it’s safeguarding against the chills of a frosty winter date or creating shaded walkways for summer picnics, we plan for love in all seasons.
Learn more about our romantic resilience projects
Any grand romantic gestures—such as surprise serenades, flash mob proposals, or elaborate dates—may require a permit from the Department. We ensure that passion is properly coordinated to avoid love jams in public spaces.
Learn more about romantic event permits
Apply for a serenade permit
For intimate moments, we offer well-maintained benches and cozy nooks throughout the city. These spaces are perfect for taking a break from the hustle, and reconnecting with your loved one.
Request a cozy bench installation
Learn more about our cozy corners
The Department of Tenderness installs, creates, and maintains love-themed street signs to guide the path of affection across the city. Our sign shop is where the magic happens—where the signs of romance are born.
Learn more about romantic street signs
Request a custom romantic sign
We maintain over 315,000 romantic streetlights throughout New York City, ensuring couples can walk hand-in-hand through softly lit parks, promenades, and streets, no matter the time of night.
Learn more about our love streetlights
Help us keep New York City’s romantic spots clean and welcoming. Individuals, businesses, and organizations can sponsor and maintain their favorite love corners, ensuring future couples can enjoy them too.
Learn more about Adopt-A-Romantic-Spot
As part of its budget for year 2025, the DOT is introducing new and needed signage across the city of New York to better eludicate and faciliate potential tender encounters. Below you can get a first look at some of the new signs coming from the DOT!
Throughout 2024, the DOT has received a startlingly increased number of reports on UH-O class non-tender interactions, known commonly as "arguing with strangers for no reason at all except that you're both in a bad mood". While disagreement is a part of any healthy relationship, platonic or romantic, these kinds of interactions do nothing to foster connection or lead to conflict resolution, and only serve to project one's own problems onto other people. The "Do Not Argue With Strangers" sign, with an accompanying fine, serves to remind people to deal with their problems in a healthier, more tender way.
While the ending of a romantic relationship is a time of great sensitivty and sorrow for all parties involved, the DOT has, over the past few years, received an increasing number of reports of both noise complaints and reports of a series of Class C-L romantic disruption (known commonly as "killing the mood") events from romantic parties breaking up. The No Dumping sign, along with signage indicating proper areas to break up such as "breakup benches", will help ensure that all such negative romantic interactions are constrained within the proper areas, preventing the total affection levels throughout the city from falling.
This sign indicates that the area in question has been identified as a prime zone for meet-cutes and other serendipitous romantic interactions. Several key areas such as fruit stands, park benches, and bookstores are being consdidered for such signage to encourage Romance Inducing Events, or RIEs, such as reaching for the same piece of fruit/copy of a romance novel or tripping and spilling coffee over a cute person at a cafe.
The DOT has identified several areas throughout New York City with negative affection deltas; that is, the affection potential of the area is higher than the actual number of tender interactions that take place. To remedy this, DOT plans to install a number of signs in these areas to encourage the residents of NYC to use each area to its fullest tenderness potential.
Indicating that within the posted timeframe, this lane is ONLY for those traveling with loved ones (families/platonic non platonic lovers, and close friends – acquaintances are NOT considered loved ones for the purposes of DOT signage and zoning). DOT has identified several highly trafficked high-romance areas that could benefit from the installation of a lovers only lane.
Indicating that families must take high priority in the posted crossings and intersections. DOT research has highlighted several areas that are not conducive to family travel, especially for those with young children/strollers/elderly family members, and will be introducing new signage to encourage more family outings.
DOT research and reports have found that throughout 2023 and 2024, levels of affection towards caregivers reached a new all-time low, with many caregivers reporting that they felt burnt out and underappreciated. In recognition of the vital role these individuals play in maintaining the overall level of affection throughout NYC, the DOT plans to introduce a new "Caregivers Only Sign" in certain areas that will be accessibly only by caregivers, such as prime bench spots at the park or certain, less-dirty sections of subway stations.
