Tourists in Big Apple Don’t Share Crime Fear

With a suitcase in each hand, the tourist left a third bag under a hotel awning and edged into a drizzly Times Square to ask about bus schedules. A young Jamaican hustling gold watches out of a briefcase watched the scene, his eyes darting from the suitcase to the tourist and back.

When the tourist was 15 feet or so from the bag, the vendor made his move. Stepping forward, he shouted: “You crazy, mon? You can’t walk off and leave a suitcase on the sidewalk. This is New York City, mon!”

From Little Italy to the Upper East Side, Central Park to the U.N., crime is the talk of the town. But just listen and it’s clear: New Yorkers, not tourists, are doing most of the talking.

In bars and restaurants, crime is where conversations begin and end. How could it be otherwise? Throughout the summer and into the fall, crime has been the story in the Big Apple.

First, headlines eulogized the number of children shot in the city. Then, the newspapers focused on the murder of Brian Watkins, 22, of Utah, in the Manhattan subway. The Sept. 17 issue of Time featured a cover story on “The Rotting of the Big Apple,” and quoted a poll in which 60% of New Yorkers said they worry about crime “all the time or often” and 59% said they would move elsewhere if they could.

And last Friday, the cover of New York Newsday declared the metropolis a “City of Mayhem” and listed a blow-by-blow account of a day’s violent crime.

Yet while what some see as a media-fueled “hysteria” has captivated New Yorkers, the dazzle of the city seems to have crowded fear to the back of tourists’ minds.

“We’d heard so much about crime that we almost didn’t come,” said Melanie Sande of Cambridge, England, as she and Bob Roust of Glasgow, Scotland, stood watching taxis shatter the reflections of Broadway signs on the rain-slick Times Square streets. “But we’d heard so much about everything else, we came anyway. “

After two days in Manhattan on the last leg of a cross-country tour, on Saturday, the two proclaimed New York dirty but exciting. Atlanta, they said, had seemed far more dangerous.

Nearby at Millford Plaza, three young Australian women who had just rushed in from an evening of sightseeing also shrugged off the threat of crime. “There’s crime everywhere, isn’t there? There’s crime in Brisbane,” said Robin Davis, 18, a tourist from that Australian city. And “Chicago seemed much more dangerous.”

In fact, the New York Convention and Visitor’s Bureau is scrambling to reassure the 25 million people who visit the city each year with a few facts: New York City ranks 13th in the FBI’s “total crime” statistics, below such cities as Dallas, Seattle, and Phoenix.

Still, bellhops, cabbies, cops and waiters insisted on warning the Australians to be careful, Davis and her friends said. “People are always saying, don’t do this and don’t do that. It’s getting annoying.”

Angelo Castaldo, a veteran New York cabdriver, said he has seen a marked increase in ridership recently. But it’s New Yorkers who are flagging him down in lieu of riding the subways.

“I get a lot of New York natives who say they want to leave New York City now because of the crime,” he said. But visitors still seem eager to come.

“The tourists are absolutely not afraid of crime,” Castaldo proclaimed.

But many tourists, at least foreign tourists, tend to think of themselves as more sophisticated these days. The international traveler’s grapevine buzzes with stories of muggings and murders but also with helpful hints on how to survive in New York City.

Among those voiced by foreign tourists: Don’t go into Central Park at night; don’t carry your wallet in your back pocket; dress down; don’t look like a tourist; don’t wear expensive jewelry; never take the subway.

Still, many tourists ignore such tips. “I just couldn’t afford to ride taxis everywhere,” said Frederique Bussiere, 20, of Maubeuge, France, as she rocked along on the N train, reading a map. “I’ve heard it’s dangerous. I know I have to watch myself down here. But I feel OK.”

At Battery Park, the departure point for tours of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the subject of crime caused a minor schism in the Friedman family. Shelley Friedman, 27, is moving to Florida soon, partly because of crime. Her mother, who works in Manhattan’s garment district, is staying, even though she has been mugged.

“You can’t be afraid. It can happen anywhere,” the mother said as the family sat in the park on a warm and sunny afternoon.

“It’s like Lyme tick disease,” said Friedman’s sister, Laurie. “There are people here who are afraid to go out of the house for fear of ticks. What are you going to do? Live in a bubble?”

While such anxious conversation about crime stirs some parts of town, conversations among people who live in crime-ridden areas reveal something more like terror.

“You can’t walk through the projects without getting robbed or shot at,” said James Geddie, a 21-year-old resident of the Bronx who spends afternoons break-dancing in Battery Park. “When I’m through here, I just go home and lock myself in.”

“The shelters aren’t safe, they’re filled with crack lords,” said a homeless woman pushing a shopping cart filled with her possessions and aluminum cans. “This area here is unbelievable, it’s not safe to walk the streets anywhere.”

For those who have homes or hotel rooms to retreat to, the threat of crime merely hovers in the periphery of day-to-day activity.

Brian and Diane Cleland, visiting New York from Calabasas, Calif., with their son Loren, had ranged about the city for almost a week without incident.

“There were two times when Brian wanted to walk in an area, but I wouldn’t go” because it looked dangerous, Diane said.

So they turned around. And overall they were enjoying themselves, they said. After all, Brian said, “You’re talking about crime. You figure, how much worse can it be than L.A.?”