Official Agency for Public Care

Department
of Tenderness

The Department of Tenderness is a speculative bureaucracy art project exploring the intersection of municipal government and human emotions.

Work with usReview past work
Form DT-001 // Public Entrance

Agency Mandate

Through our maps, forms, love advice consultations, and other activities, we invite New Yorkers to explore what government, and human connection, mean to them.

Bureau Services

Agency Services & Inquiries

Select a department below to begin your activation.

Tenderness Interventions

Collaborative deployments that spread positive emotions throughout the Five Boroughs and surrounding municipalities.

Access Department // 100

Love Landmark Requests

Submit a place where you fell in love with someone—or with New York City itself.

Public portal forthcoming // 101

Tenderness Incident Report Form

Record an important emotional moment, from falling in love or developing a grudge to simply having a good day.

Public portal forthcoming // 102

Signage Office

Explore signs supporting municipal tenderness promotion and control, browse public submissions, or submit your own compliant design.

Public portal forthcoming // 103

Department Notices

Notices on tenderness-related road closures, tunnel of love installations, alternate-side breakup suspensions, family-time mandates, and more.

Public portal forthcoming // 104

About the Department

Review our mandate, operations, founding charter, and achievements.

Access Department // 105

Public Inquiries

Contact the Department to schedule a deployment in your community.

Access Department // 106
Field Activations

Past Activations

The Department’s public deployments, installations, and interdepartmental engagements.

Municipal Record // 2024–2026
Summer Streets documentation, image 1
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Summer 2026Foley Square and Classon Avenue, New York City
DT-001

Summer Streets

Deployment at Foley Square and Classon Avenue to support New Yorkers’ emotional lives with the full suite of our municipal tenderness programming.

Pinky Swear Gallery documentation, image 1
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Pinky Swear Gallery documentation, image 2
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Lower Manhattan, New York City
DT-002

Pinky Swear Gallery

Permanent installation of our signage at the Pinky Swear Gallery in Lower Manhattan to foster greater understanding of municipal tenderness regulations for nightlife participants.

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Public Sector Office Holiday Party documentation, image 1
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Public Sector Office Holiday Party documentation, image 2
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November 2025New York City
DT-003

Public Sector Office Holiday Party

Interdepartmental support for municipal, state, and federal workers attending Public Sector Office’s annual holiday party.

Photos 1Photos 2
Summer Streets documentation, image 1
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Summer Streets documentation, image 3
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August 2025Plaza de las Americas and Classon Avenue, New York City
DT-004

Summer Streets

Deployments at Plaza de las Americas on 175th Street and Classon Avenue in Brooklyn to provide municipal tenderness services across boroughs. Initial testing of our revamped love mapping program.

Photos 1Photos 2Photos 3+3 more sources
Winter Ours documentation, image 1
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Winter Ours documentation, image 2
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February–March 2025Outside New York City
DT-005

Winter Ours

First Department of Tenderness engagement outside of New York City. Display of signage and forms, with sign-making activities for visitors.

Photos 1Photos 2Photos 3+4 more sources
Urban Omnibus Launch Party documentation, image 1
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February 2025New York City
DT-006

Urban Omnibus Launch Party

Notice of appreciation sharing and municipal tenderness sign-making activity for the Urban Omnibus launch party.

View gallery
Public Sector Office Holiday Party documentation, image 1
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November 2024New York City
DT-007

Public Sector Office Holiday Party

First deployment at Public Sector Office’s holiday party. Surveyed New York City municipal employees on the relative tenderness of different departments.

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Kensington Plaza Activation documentation, image 1
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October 2024Kensington Plaza, Brooklyn
DT-008

Kensington Plaza Activation

Initial deployment of the Department of Tenderness’s municipal outreach work.

Photos 1Photos 2Photos 3+3 more sources
Partnership Opportunities

Tenderness Interventions

The Department of Tenderness is statutorily required to partner with like-minded organizations and help spread positive emotions throughout the Five Boroughs of New York City and surrounding municipalities.

We offer a variety of tenderness services. Reach out to schedule a deployment in your community.

Schedule a Deployment

Availability & Services

  • Maps and love landmarking
  • Forms and emotional census activities
  • Love advice consultations
  • Municipal tenderness signage
  • Community deployments
Availability: OpenRef: DT-COL-2026
About the Department

Maintaining New York City’s emotional infrastructure

The Department of Tenderness is New York City’s agency dedicated to promoting love and affection in all five boroughs. Our staff of over 3,000 helps maintain the city’s romantic and platonic infrastructure and supports New Yorkers in their search for human connection.

The Department’s Romance Management Consultants, Tenderness Technicians, and Relationship Maintenance Workers can be found across the city repairing emotional infrastructure, supporting New Yorkers with romantic and platonic conflict resolution, and maintaining our databases of love landmarks and relationship census responses.

Founding Charter

The Department of Tenderness was chartered in 1975 under Local Law 867-B, an act establishing a municipal agency for promoting love and affection and providing for the renovation of municipal tenderness infrastructure. The Department was created in response to the “love deficit” that afflicted the city around the same time as its fiscal crisis.

Selected Department Achievements
  1. 01Construction of the Cross-Cross Bronx Tunnel of Love in 1985
  2. 02The annual Staten Island Festival of Love and Affection, held since 1996
  3. 03Installation of over 500,000 individual tenderness signs across all five boroughs
  4. 04Over one million Romance Management consultations since the program began in 1990
  5. 05150,000 continuously happy couples matched through our love matching program, with a revised program for polyamorous New Yorkers launching in 2027
  6. 06A 1,700% increase in municipal LoLs—Levels of Love—since 1975
  7. 07An 80% response rate for our biannual relationship census for over a decade following Local Law 404-D, which established an escalating fine for failure to complete relationship census forms
Public Liaison

Public Inquiries

Reach out to schedule a deployment in your community or inquire about a collaboration.

departmentoftenderness@gmail.com
Region: Five Boroughs / Surrounding Municipalities
Status: Actively Receiving Inquiries
Chartered 1975 // DoT-HQ