Imagine no more gawkers.
Residents and neighbors of the Upper West Side’s famed Dakota building are battling back against an invasion of tour buses packed with passengers straining to catch a glimpse of the site where John Lennon was slain.
Thirty years after the Beatles star was gunned down outside the building where he lived, the site still draws curiosity seekers. And with them come noisy, gas-guzzling, pollution-spewing, traffic-snarling buses, many from as far away as Canada. “They are an inconvenience and a nuisance,” said Gail Bell, a Dakota resident since 1996. “When the tourists get out, they block the entire sidewalk and you can’t get back into your building. It’s dangerous because many times, the buses block the intersection. They block the vision of the pedestrian walking across. I’ve seen people nearly killed.”
Gale Brewer, the city councilwoman who represents the area, asked Mayor Bloomberg last week to station enforcement agents outside the Dakota on weekends to keep buses from doubleparking.
“It’s an accident waiting to happen,” Brewer said. “It’s not that we don’t want tourism, but it needs to be done safely. It’s gotten out of hand.”
Not long after Brewer weighed in on the issue, a bus driver double-parked beside the building on West 72nd Street and Central Park West and let passengers off.
“I’m sorry,” the bus driver said when confronted. “We only park here for like 10 minutes, then take off. I can understand how it is a problem and why residents are annoyed. I wouldn’t like it where I live.”
Residents in Greenwich Village have been facing similar problems around buses that carry riders on “Sex and the City” tours. Although the buses don’t clog the Perry Street site of Carrie Bradshaw’s stoop, they do idle outside a playground on Bleecker Street, near the Magnolia Bakery made famous by the show.
“The tour was coming down here with 50-plus people many times of the day,” said Gerald Banu, president of the Perry Street Block Association.
“They never shut off their damn engines, and kids are at the park playing on the swings.”
Bus drivers who idle their engines near the Dakota face a $2,000 fine, but residents said the regulation is rarely enforced.
Mark David Chapman shot Lennon to death outside the Dakota on Dec. 8, 1980. A Central Park memorial garden, Strawberry Fields, was constructed across the street in the musician’s honor.