Someone has finally come up with a way to keep New Yorkers from being driven mad by slow-moving tourists who get in their way — dividing the sidewalk into separate lanes for residents and out-of-towners.
A white line mysteriously showed up in the center of the Fifth Avenue sidewalk between East 22nd and 23rd streets.
One side — clearly the fast lane — is marked “New Yorkers.”
And camera-toting out-of-towners can amble along in the “Tourists” lane without being trampled when they stop to take pictures of the big buildings.
“When I came in Saturday morning, it was fresh,” said Luis Ramos, who works at a store in the Flatiron Building.
“I assumed it was some artist that did it. The New Yorkers walk by, but the tourists stop and look.”
Bastian Strobel, 20, a visiting student from Germany, was not insulted.
“I think it’s funny,” he said. “I was already on the tourist side anyway, so I’ll stay there.”
Bianca Smith, 32, a receptionist, liked the idea.
“New York tourists are annoying. They stop, look around, take pictures and hold me up,” she said. “I don’t know if the lanes could be enforced, but it would be nice. For now, I’ll just keep walking around them.”
The “tourist lanes” became the talk of the Internet after Mark Armstrong snapped a picture of them that turned up on TheAwl.com.