Metro

Chelsea resident hangs anti-tourism posters pleading visitors to improve their manners

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From this person’s kvetching, you’d think Chelsea was Times Square.

Someone in the trendy Manhattan neighborhood has slapped posters on light poles in an effort to lecture misbehaving tourists on how to behave when visiting the High Line and other local hot spots.

“Attention High Line Tourists,” the screed begins.

“The neighborhood around the High Line is not a tourist attraction. It is a small and fragile neighborhood. So while here, please use your best manners.”

It goes on to complain about annoying tourist habits like crowding sidewalks and snapping pictures along the neighborhood’s historic buildings and tree-lined streets.

“Buildings are not tourist attractions: People live there, and sitting on the steps and taking pictures is as invasive, rude and inappropriate as a group of strangers sitting on the steps of your home and taking pictures of it and you . . .

“Please consider how you would feel if 3 million people a year from around the world trampled your street, your neighborhood, and your local park, and act accordingly — in the way that your morals or religion or general human consideration would dictate.”

The posters aren’t going down well with lots of New Yorkers — who, it turns out, actually like the out-of-towners.

Some wrote scathing comments about the posters on the Web site Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, which first reported on them.

Said one commenter: “Dear Chelsea, Nice problem to have. Wanna trade? Sincerely, Bedford-Stuyvesant.”

The posters’ complaint doesn’t add up in other ways.

It understates the number of visitors to the High Line, which drew 3.7 million visitors last year.

It also overlooks the fact that according to the group Friends of the High Line, about half of the park’s visitors are New Yorkers.

“I like talking to the different tourists who come into the neighborhood — I think it adds to the flavor,” said Nidia Carrero, 51, an anesthesiologist and Chelsea resident who said she was “surprised” anyone would be upset about the visitors.

“The tourists just walk through; they don’t bother anybody,” said Zoraida Percy, 43, a teacher’s aide who remembers Chelsea’s bad old days.

“I grew up in this neighborhood, and you couldn’t even walk over to the pier. That whole area was messed up,” she said. “Now, I take my 10-year-old daughter there almost every weekend — both days. It’s beautiful.”