Midtown Snapshots: Some Tourists Are Smart!

Murray's Salami

I know my bashing of tourists is wrong (after all, we are all tourists whenever we go somewhere else) but sorry I can’t help it. It comes from working across the street from Rockefeller Center for 3 years, and being forced to walk through Times Square every single night to get home. But yesterday, I spotted this awesome group of Italian tourists in front of Murray’s Salami, in the Grand Central Market (I decided to stop by for a free sample of coppa.) The group had come up with the brilliant idea of buying some bread at Corrado’s Bakery, and combining it with some proscuitto from Murray’s Salami for a midday snack. Genius!!! It only goes to show that great food ideas transcend language and culture… well, that and Italians know how to eat.

23 Comments

  • Italians know a good thing when they see it

  • They probably stumbled across ML on the town library’s computer before getting on the bus by the cornfields and headed to the big city.

  • Looks like they bought clothes in Bensonhurst earlier in the day

  • Now if only they could figure out how to get rid of the garbage in Naples and the foot of water in Venice..

  • Moze,

    Do they have a lot of cornfields in Italy?

  • they look so happy… i need to go get some sandwiches if it can bring ppl such joy

  • I am a notorius basher of tourists, but not ALL tourists. My hatred is really relegated to those folks who are visiting one of the top food cities in the world. Tons of fantastic places to eat (at all price ranges), and they decide to cram their pieholes at Chevy’s, Dallas BBQ, and Bubba mother f’ing Shrimp Co. in Times Square.

  • OK, speaking as a Hoosier transplanted to NYC, I think the reason that tourists go to these awful restaurants is because of familiarity (in the case of Applebee’s or McDonalds). When confronted with all the crazy newness of the big city, that familiarity is very comforting. Or it’s because of proximity. They don’t want to stray TOO far from their hotel (other than going to Grand Central or Ground Zero) and they don’t want to experiment with any big city, new-fangled cuisine.
    That said, could the tourists PLEASE learn how to walk down a sidewalk at quicker than a snail’s pace in groups of less than seven?

  • ITALIANS!!! THEY ARE TRYING TO STEAL YOUR ARCTIC CIRCLE-CANDY POKEY

  • Jill – as another transplanted Hoosier, I agree with your assessment of midwesterners eating habits in new york, but my verdict is a little less kind. If they want familiarity, why even leave Muncie or Elkhart or New Albany in the first place? If you’re going to travel, for god’s sake have a sense of adventure!

  • Jill – I think the knives & forks confuse them.

  • Che gioia!

  • Dave,
    I think it’s a good first step for a midwesterner to travel. Opening what could quite possibly be a very closed and narrow mind. Their sense of adventure is evident in the fact that they are even here in the first place. Baby steps…
    Next year when they come back they’ll get food from the Hallo Berlin cart while dancing naked at the gay pride parade.

  • Jill: yes they do, and it’s a heckuva long bus ride too!

    There’s a reason they put an Olive Garden and a Red Lobster in the middle of Times Square. (Along with the McD’s, etc., and even the *gulp* Tad’s for the unsuspecting out-of-towners.)

    Once again: Why DO they call it ‘tourist season’ if we aren’t allowed to shoot them? Times Square and Rock Center are hellholes this time of year.

  • If you “enjoy” NYC tourists then I have a website for you:
    http://nyctourists.wordpress.com/

  • Of course you’re all siblings of Billionaire Penthouse Park View Parents and were brought up on Simon & Garfunkle.

    And did you know it’s 28 years since you shot John Lennon.

    How very big city of you.

  • Shame what happened to Lennon … A SHAME IT WASN’T THAT NO-TALENT HACK McCARTNEY!

    Ringo was the only cool one anyway…

  • Wayne, or may i call you Heather,well said.

  • Ringo got Barbara Bach

    MacCartney got Pegleg

    There is justice in the world

  • Corrado’s bakery – the only Corrado’s I know is the one in Clifton, NJ – can’t be the same one?

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