A room with a view: Homeless building snug studios into the Manhattan Bridge

Homeless people are constructing dwellings in the Manhattan Bridge

Using plywood, vagrants are converting narrow spaces on the underside of the bridge to sleeping nooks

Some enterprising vagrants are turning New York's Manhattan Bridge into a rent-free residence using only plywood and ingenuity.



As rents rise in Brooklyn and working professionals fork out a fortune to live in Manhattan shoeboxes, homeless New Yorkers are living the city life gratis.



According to real estate appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate, the median monthly rent in the previously affordable borough of Brooklyn is $2,900, a record high and only marginally cheaper than Manhattan.



Prime real estate: The dwellings are built into the upper deck of the bridge, below car traffic but above the subway

Admittedly the dwellings, narrow spaces just big enough for one person to lie down, are cramped, but they provide shelter for people who otherwise have to brave the elements.



The New York Post reports that one bridge-dweller, a middle-aged Chinese man, locks his plywood 'door' with a bicycle lock each morning and returns for the evening to sleep.



To reach the dwelling, which is built into the bridge frame on the Manhattan side of the bridge, he climbs a chain-link fence.

Last Sunday a cyclst saw the man climbing to his rustic nook and mistook him for a jumper, calling 911 to report what he thought was an impending suicide.



He was yanked off the fence by police and questioned, finally managing to convey in his limited English that he wasn't trying to jump, but was merely returning home.



Prime location: The Manhattan bridge links the city with Brooklyn's DUMBO neighborhood

'People are really desperate for places to stay. I say, if he’s not bothering anybody, he’s not bothering me. Leave him alone,' Marcha Johnson, a passerby riding her bike near the shantytown told the Post.



The pods are built into the underside of the upper deck of the bridge, below car traffic and above the subway.

