PROSPECT HEIGHTS — The city is rolling out an appointment-based system and pop-up sign up locations to handle the massive demand for the New York City ID cards, officials said.
Hundreds of people lined up on a frigid Tuesday morning outside the Brooklyn Public Library on the first day they could apply for the cards.
Starting Wednesday at 9 a.m., residents will be able to make an appointment at one of the 17 enrollment centers in the five boroughs either online at www.nyc.gov/IDCNY or by calling 311.
Walk-ins will only be allowed to make appointments for a later time.
Pop-up enrollment sites are also planned to open including two at the end of the month and three soon after, the mayor's office said.
The IDNYC cards, which are available free of charge to city residents 14 and older, will allow New Yorkers without ID to open bank accounts, get health care discounts and visit museums for free.
RELATED: HOW TO GET THE NEW YORK CITY MUNICIPAL ID
Kensington resident Fahad Malik, 26, got in line at about 7:30 a.m. after his father told him about the importance of getting the identification.
“I have frozen feet. I couldn’t let it go,” said Malik, who moved to the city from Bangladesh when he was 8.
He added that he thought it was important to have an extra form of identification and also that he wanted to support what he saw as “the next step in immigration reform.”
Flatbush resident Marcia Bryan, 50, said she wanted the ID so she could get a free museum membership.
“I take my daughter to museums in the summer," she said. "[The ID] would be a benefit for me.”
Bryan, though, expressed some frustration with the process after being told she would have to come back to the library on Wednesday when they ran out of applications at about 10:30 a.m.
“Some people had to go away empty-handed," she said.
A guard said more than 2,000 people showed up at the library Tuesday morning, with the line snaking out of the building to Flatbush Avenue.
Alice King, 46, was one of the people waiting in the cold, after arriving at the museum at 7:30 a.m.
By noon she was waiting inside the library’s lobby, after going through part of the application process.
“I’ve been sitting this line forever,” said King, who moved from Trinidad to Brooklyn 15 years ago.
Still she was happy to get her ID.
“It’s something good they should have done a long time ago.”
People who want the identification can check the IDNYC website for application materials and locations to enroll.
