As a licensed NYC tour guide since 1995, I view the entire city as my office. Rather than sitting day after day next to the same co-workers in identical cubicles, I travel through different neighborhoods, encountering new people and new situations with each tour.
I visit famous landmarks and hidden treasures, shepherding tourists who might be awestruck or intimidated, fascinated or overwhelmed, exhilarated or exhausted — or some combination of all. Many have never been in a city that moves as fast as New York, and little can test the patience of New Yorkers like a slow-moving gaggle of tourists hogging the sidewalks.
In fact, New York’s reputation for “rudeness” is an outdated stereotype.
But after nearly three decades of tour guiding, I have come to believe that the Big Apple is, in fact, filled with Good Samaritans. And since March 13 is National Good Samaritan Day, I want to pay tribute to just a few of the good deeds I have witnessed in a city where its citizens have often been labeled indifferent at best or cold-hearted at worst.
On multiple occasions, I’ve accompanied a distraught tour member back to the spot where they misplaced a purse or backpack. When we returned to the Metropolitan Museum, or the McDonalds on 125th St., or a Starbucks on 23rd St., we discovered that the items had been tucked safely away. In all instances, nothing was missing.
I can’t tell you how many of my tourists have shared stories of New Yorkers who offer directions or advice when they found themselves lost or confused. One Good Samaritan literally went the extra mile with a tour group member who failed to get off the train with the rest of our group. This helpful soul ushered my wayward tourist off at the next stop and escorted him back to reunite him with us.
When a teenager with Down syndrome got separated from her mother, Tiffany’s offered the Fifth Ave. store as a headquarters for the police search and rescue; passing shoppers joined in the search; and other strangers stayed behind to comfort and console the mother until the girl was found and safely returned. When a thief snatched a purse from one of my tourists at a Theatre District restaurant, it seemed like the entirety of Times Square mobilized to chase him down. My tourist got her purse back, and the thief got a ride with the NYPD.
As a 30-year resident of the city, I have often been the recipient of Gotham kindness myself. I remember fondly the half dozen or so who rushed to pick me up when I slipped in the snow, the stranger who stopped a street vendor from ripping me off, and the shop owner who gave me a coat to wear when she realized that this Florida transplant was totally unprepared for my first winter in New York.
National Good Samaritan Day encourages the kinds of actions I’ve experienced myself and seen with my tour groups. The term “Good Samaritan” originates from the New Testament story Jesus tells about a Jewish man who was beaten, robbed, and left for dead. In the story, the man was rescued and cared for by a passing Samaritan, even though Jews and Samaritans looked on each other with bitter animosity in that time and place.
It also serves to commemorate the death of Kitty Genovese, who was killed on March 13, 1964, near her Queens home. News reports of the day claimed that dozens of people witnessed the attack but failed to call police. Although later reporting has cast doubts on some of the original claims about witnesses, the case became famous and has been used for years as an example of “uncaring New Yorkers.”
Observing National Good Samaritan Day is a respectful way to pay homage to a woman who died way too young in a brutally violent attack. Personally, I believe it’s also a good day to remember the kindnesses that I have been the recipient of and witnessed regularly from my New York “office.” Those actions have confirmed to me that New Yorkers truly do care for their neighbors.
So today, offer up a smile or a kind word or make an effort to help out a confused tourist. Perhaps perform some other small act of selflessness when it would be easier to just look the other way. I want everyone to be able to testify to the benevolence that my tourists regularly experience in this beautiful city. Thanks, New Yorkers! Keep up the good work.
Ray Stanton is author of “Out of the Shadow of 9/11: An Inspiring Tale of Escape and Transformation.”
