The Future of NYC Tour Bus Guides

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now a follow-up to one of the calls we got on the show this month for Mayor Bill de Blasio on our weekly Ask the Mayor segment. The call was Andy from Astoria on November 5th, three days before the US reopened to foreign tourists if they're vaccinated against COVID, but--

Andy: I've worked in tourism for 23 years, means I'm barely working now, but this isn't about me. The double-decker industry has been allowed to reopen without its tour guides. They fired all their tour guides. This is not bringing those jobs back. In place, they're running tapes. You were just talking about Vision Zero, but the drivers have to run these machines while driving. Meanwhile, the tourists are up on the top levels with no one supervising. We never get credit for the accidents we prevented, but we've been preventing potentially dangerous accidents for years on top of these buses. We want to know what the city's going to do about it.

Brian Lehrer: Andy, thank you very much. Familiar with this issue, Mr. Mayor?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: I actually am happy Andy is familiarizing me with it, Brian, and I think Andy's got a good point. I did not know that the tour buses had so systematically taken the human element out. I think that's a problem for not only the reason that Andy's raising in terms of safety impact, but also its jobs. The tour guides, I've heard them do their thing going by, bringing a lot of New York color and flavor and energy. It's not the same thing to have it on the tapes.

Brian Lehrer: All right, that was the mayor there with Andy from Astoria, part of his call on November 5th, on the weird timing that just as foreign tourists are being allowed back into New York, many tour guides have lost their jobs. The double-decker buses, he said, have only a driver now, just to recap, who just plays a recording to point out the sights. The laid-off tour guides obviously want their jobs back, and they're also making this argument that the new barebones model is a safety hazard. City Council is considering a tour guide staffing bill. With us now is Patrick Casey, head of government relations for The Guides' Association of New York City and a professional tour guide himself for many years. Patrick, thanks for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Patrick Casey: Thank you, Brian. Good morning. We really appreciate this opportunity to talk.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take your calls. If you are or have ever been a New York City tour guide on the bus or off the bus, this call-in is for you. Talk about this issue, talk about your work, talk about what the pandemic did, and if the tourists are coming back, and if your job is coming back. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. There was just an article in the Times yesterday called From Katz's Deli to Broadway, International Tourists Trickle Back. Tour guides, is it just a trickle so far? Are they trickling onto your tours or onto the buses without you? 212-433-WNYC. If you are or have been a tour guide, 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer. Patrick, most of our listeners have probably seen the double-decker buses go by thousands of times but never ridden on one. What was that experience like before the pandemic?

Patrick Casey: It was always exciting and it was always fun. One of the great things for any tour guide is to be pointing something out that your guests have maybe seen once in a movie. It should never be forgotten that trips to New York City are sometimes once in a lifetime. They are something many travelers aspire to, "I'm finally in New York." It's always a great and wonderful time with our guests.

Brian Lehrer: How much of Andy's call to the mayor do you want to affirm or correct or add to about what has happened recently?

Patrick Casey: What has happened recently? Just a wee bit of backstory. This bill, 289-A, has been moving through City Council for several years now. Like most things in government, a deadline is often what kicks it to the forefront, and we have a couple of elements coming in here as well. 289-A is a bill that will return guides to the upper decks of double-decker buses. They were removed at the start of the pandemic when the double-deckers bus shut down. They weren't running, the guides were furloughed. Now that the tourists are back, the double-deckers are running, the double-deckers have gone to automated, push the button, roll the tape.

At a time when open streets is expanding, restaurants are taking more and more of the street real estate, this is a public safety issue, first and foremost. Drivers are now manipulating sound systems, dealing with customer issues and complaints while navigating traffic. This is a disaster waiting to happen. Andy referred to the accidents that tour guides have prevented

I know that the tour guides are listening out there. They'll know that, yes, there's that moment where the bus makes the turn off 49th Street, you're looking straight down toward One Times Square, and I guarantee you, the half a dozen of our guests are going to jump up and they are going to want that photograph. There's a Times Square Ball, they've only seen it on TV. That bus is turning and a guide on that double-decker is going to gently but firmly put them back in their seats and help them take that photograph when it's safe to do so.

These double-decker buses operate on hop-on, hop-off. A passenger can leave and explore a neighborhood. It's the guide who up there is saying, "Driver, we have a passenger departing, do not start out the bus yet." That is actually one of the more common accidents, when they do happen, of a passenger slipping on the spiral stair coming down. The bus is still in motion, but the guide can prevent that. This is an enormous public safety issue here.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call from one of the guides affected, I think. Charles in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Charles.

Charles: Brian, thank you very much. I wanted to say that Andy used to be our shop steward years ago, but-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: The caller to the mayor?

Charles: Yes. We also had a contract with NYU to bus-tour students. Andy went down to complain in front of NYU with a group of tour guides. After that, they fired him, and then they got somebody els like Academy to run their buses. A lot of times, these bus companies take on more than they can handle. They really never sent us a departure letter, they just laid us off during COVID. I was under the understanding that a lot of companies like restaurants, and bus tourist businesses got money from the government to go back into business, which our company never did. Some of the other companies that started later than we did are still doing that, but they're not using tour guides.

In other words, they even told us to go back after the unemployment ended to collect money again, and that wasn't going to happen with unemployment. I think they cut the envelope open saying that they were taking care of us by not firing us, but they never gave us any of the money that the government gave them. I even heard they were trying to buy another bus company, the people we worked for.

Anyway, I think that the guy you have on is very articulate. Tour guides really help out the situation. They give people more of a hometown view, and they really protect tourists from taking pictures. That was the worst thing, to get the shot, because New York is so beautiful. Anyway, I just wanted to say that and leave it with your guest.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Thank you very much, Charles, and good luck out there. Here's Jacquelyn in Bed-Stuy. You're on WNYC. Hi, Jacquelyn.

Jacquelyn: Hi there. I am also a licensed New York City tour guide. I've been working for about 19 years. I've done less of the work on the big buses, although I did spend a really crazy summer on the large buses, and I practically watch people who would have, without us, decapitated themselves, probably. I think there really is a big control issue. I also want to say there's another issue.

I'm an international tour guide, I work mostly with the French-speaking population. Over the last years, the French Canadians have come across using no New York tour guides for the most part, they're using themselves as tour guides. I'm afraid this is probably going to get even worse if they start coming again, which they haven't. In other words, instead of somebody licensed who really cares about New York history, who lives in New York, you have your friend from Montreal doing the tour for you, and nobody's controlled it. I really feel that that's an important part of the industry as well.

Brian Lehrer: How did the live tour guides who are New Yorkers handle the language issues with tourists coming from so many countries?

Jacquelyn: We're bilinguals if we work with a particular population. When I was on the larger buses, it was a big problem. I speak three languages, they wouldn't let me. They give the tour in English and tell them, "Punch the tape if you want another language," but for the most part, we're bilinguals or trilinguals or whatever.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Rebecca in Brooklyn, I think, is a different kind of tour guide. Hi, Rebecca.

Rebecca: Hi, I'm calling from Social Justice Walks, which was recently called Social Justice Tours. We're now a collective. Our founder was one of the main organizers of the Big Apple unionizing drive. He started his own company because of his poor treatment. He was driven out of Big Apple. It was pure retaliation. He actually won the suit against them. He started Social Justice Tours years ago and then right before the pandemic, we were going to come together to form a collective, and we did. About three weeks later, no business.

Actually, he started it wanting to create a space for New Yorkers to be able to learn about their city. That's our mission. Prior to the pandemic, we were getting tons of international visitors, and we felt like we were doing a little bit more tourism than the political education and action-oriented work we wanted to do. Over the last year, we've been meeting trying to figure out how to reach New Yorkers again, and we just descaled and we don't offer as many walks in. We shifted to thematic walks, monthly thematic walks that work around the holidays. I'm going to be giving a program on Thursday.

Brian Lehrer: They sound great. Social Justice Walks, how do people get in touch?

Rebecca: It's socialjusticetours.org. We are called Social Justice Walks now because we don't want to be tourism-oriented, but we're giving a program on Thursday. It's going to be called Truth-giving. Look at the origins, basically starting with the Museum of the American Indian. Look at the origins of the city back to Lenape and look at the Museum of the American Indian and think about how maybe some of the signage around it could change a little bit. We're trying to be more action-oriented as we go forward.

Brian Lehrer: That is great. Rebecca, thank you very much for your call. Patrick Casey, head of government relations for the Guides Association of New York City, we've only got a minute left in the show. On that call in, the mayor sounded like he never heard about the issue before that call. Do you know if he followed up and studied up on it at all or has taken a position or exerted any influence in City Council on the bill that would that would mandate a human tour guide?

Patrick Casey: He certainly got the attention of the Department of Transportation's Commissioner, Mr. Guttman, who did reach out to Andy and expressed his concern about how the double-deckers are being run. Beyond that, we've heard nothing from the mayor's office but know that we are working to get 289A passed. It is always deadline-sensitive. There is a deadline coming up at the end of term. We need to get this bill passed while it has over 30 sponsors who support the bill, and it's coming at a time when tourists are coming back.

I think cities all over the world, and particularly in New York, are going to be relying more heavily on their tourism dollars. We're coming out of a pandemic. They're trickling back, they are coming back, but it's still a trickle. Real estate's not coming back. Retail has got an uphill battle but the tourism dollar is there for New York and we're going to need it and let's ensure that our tourists, our guests can be safe and comfortable as they experience the greatest city in the world with the greatest New Yorkers in the world, the tour guides of New York City.

Brian Lehrer: All right. They're putting in the word for your colleagues in the industry. Patrick, thank you very much for joining us. We really appreciate it. The Brian Lehrer Show is produced by Lisa Allison, Mary Croak, Zoe Azulay, Amina Srna, cowboys Rhonda and Max Bolton. Zach Gotterer-Cohen works on our daily podcast. Our interns this fall are James O'Donnell and Prerna Choudry. We had Juliana Fonda and Shawn Sundra at the audio controls. Talk to you tomorrow. Brian Lehrer on WNYC

 

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