Every NYC Tourist's Worst Nightmare Comes True for One Woman
Years ago, when an acquaintance of mine in Florida heard I was going to visit New York City, he replied, with complete seriousness, "New York City, huh? You wanna take my pistol?" This is because all those local yokel out-of-towners down south still imagine New York to be a dark, dangerous land prowled by muggers and rapists. The fools! NYC is safer than ever. Unless you're that one terribly unlucky person.
A woman visiting the city from North Carolina went out for a fun night in Manhattan earlier this week. She went to Union Square to catch the train back to her apartment late at night. All perfectly normal. But—but—she had fallen prey to those hotels that put ads online for unsuspecting tourists claiming they are "close" to Manhattan. They are not. From the NYT:
It was still dark, early on Wednesday. The visitor, 33, was on her way back to her hotel in the Bronx, a place that shows up often on Internet searches for hotels that are relatively inexpensive and close to Manhattan via the subway.
A man that saw her in Union Square trailed her all the way back to her Bronx hotel room, knocked on her door, and raped her. This is the exact nightmare scenario that Southern tourists imagine when they visit NYC. Ugh. We swear that it usually does not happen, visitors.
Just the next day, the worst nightmare of every New York City resident came true when an old man crashed his car through the front of a busy Long Island Dunkin' Donuts.
