Real Bronx Tours has stopped a widely criticized tour that promises to show tourists a New York City “ghetto.”
The tour gained attention after a New York Post reporter took one of the $45 trips, which caters to mostly European and Australian tourists, last week. The Post reported that Lynn Battaglia, a tour guide from Pittsburgh, had specifically pointed out a housing project and mocked the Grand Concourse for being modeled after Paris. She even asked a couple from France, “Do you feel like we’re on the Champs-Elysées?”
When the tour guide saw a line of poor people, she told her guests, “I don’t know what that line’s about, but every Wednesday we see it. We see them go in with empty carts, and we see them come out with carts full.”
Battaglia took her tourists to St. Mary’s Park, making it sound as if the area was still dangerous. “If it were 1980 and you said to me, ‘Lynn, I want to die.’ My answer would be, ‘You’re in the right neighborhood,’” she said.
Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz was angered by the scene. “They should tell people about The Bronx that we all know, and that’s The Bronx that’s had the lowest crime rate since 1963 last year,” he told the Post. “To have foreigners come and gawk at a long line of people who are less fortunate than they are and to make money off of that and to view them as they are some sort of entertainment is pretty disgusting.”
According to The Telegraph, Melissa Mark-Viverito, a councillor, and Diaz wrote an open letter, noting that they were “sickened by the despicable way” the Bronx was described in the tour.
“We strongly urge you to stop profiting off of a tour that misrepresents the Bronx as a haven for poverty and crime, while mocking everything from our landmarks to the less fortunate members of our community who are availing themselves of food assistance programs,” the letter read.
The Associated Press reports that the company finally agreed to put an end to the tours immediately. The company released no further comment.