New York’s new “Global Welcome Ambassador” Taylor Swift had better start the diplomatic mission — to her fellow New Yorkers!
Within minutes after the city’s tourism agency announced Swift as the Big Apple’s promotional face on Monday, the selection was being attacked and mocked by New Yorkers appalled that an out-of-towner is now Gotham’s top pitchman.
“I’m incensed! It’s insulting,” Queens-born Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider told the Daily News. “She doesn’t have any life experience here, or connection to the town.
“There’s so many others — Jerry Seinfeld, for instance, if you want a big name,” Snider added. “But Taylor Swift is the pop culture queen, so she moves into town, and she’s the ambassador.”
Swift’s defenders point out that the Pennsylvania-born, Tennessee-raised singer lives in Tribeca and is always out and about in Manhattan — but detractors quickly counter that her apartment is no fifth-floor walk-up with a lease co-signed by her parents, but a $20 million penthouse.
And Swift sees little of the city but the four steps from that stoop to her waiting SUV, and the four steps from that SUV to her Bowery gym. She’s also sometimes in Times Square for TV appearances.
But defenders can strike back: Taylor’s new single “Welcome to New York” is a boppy tribute to the city — albeit one with references to city life so generic that it could have been called “Welcome to LA” or even “Welcome to Detroit.”
The selection of Swift was so absurd on its face that even polite Canadians were slamming it.
“Does she know how much to add to a MetroCard to end up without a few cents trapped on it?” asked NY1 anchorman Pat Kiernan, who has become synonymous with the city. “Does she know which hot dog vendor sells the ‘Recession Special?’ Does she know that 44th Ave., 44th Rd. and 44th Dr. are all parallel streets in Queens? Does she know who Dr. Zizmor is?”
New York guide Seth Kamil, owner of Big Onion Tours, piled on in the same way.
“Is she gonna ride the subway?” asked Kamil. “Is she going to go to Queens?”
Maybe not, but NYC and Co. unveiled its new ambassador with videos featuring Swift helping to explain New York to tourists — such as by offering the correct pronunciation of “Houston Street” and defining what a “bodega” is (though she pauses over the word “bodega” just long enough to suggest that New York is not her native language).
As a result, the agency’s Facebook page was hit with negative posts — “Seems like a truly ridiculous ambassador,” wrote Kiersten Kehrer in a typical post — but Kamil suggested that the choice of Swift reveals more about how New York perceives itself than it does about the woman hired to sell the city.
“New York has chosen to portray itself as America’s playground, and not necessarily a place where New Yorkers live,” he said. “Taylor Swift has this nice, clean, wholesome image. She doesn’t have addiction issues, she doesn’t have a trash mouth.”
Indeed, Swift’s champions point out that from Peter Stuyvesant to George Washington to Jackie Kennedy to E.B. White to all of the poor, tired, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, New York has always been energized by talented newcomers who show up on our doorstep and put their own stamp on the city.
“New York City is the melting pot, and everyone comes from somewhere,” said former “Real Housewife of NYC” Jill Zarin. “She represents youth, talent, creativeness, and she is definitely a role model.”
Ultimate New Yorker, Barneys Creative Ambassador Simon Doonan, agreed that there is “no downside” in the Taylor Swift pick.
“She is the biggest pop star on the planet at this moment,” said Doonan. “I am sure it will inspire lots of people to visit our town. Go Taylor!”
Still, it’s hard to imagine why the tourism agency didn’t go with a homegrown artist like Nicki Minaj, from South Jamaica; Jay Z and Alicia Keys, whose “Empire State of Mind” has become as much of a city anthem as Frank Sinatra’s version of “New York, New York”; or TV “It” girls Lena Dunham or Zosia Mamet?
Actually, it’s easy to imagine. Jay Z once dealt drugs. And Nicki Minaj sings about her butt.
“It’s all about who’s gonna get the most (positive) news coverage for New York, not who’s the most worthy,” Snider sniffed.
“Welcome to New York” is not so worthy — it’s more a TV jingle than a song, one that Brooklyn rapper El-P tweeted “makes me want to finally move from New York.”
Nonetheless, NYC and Co. has named its new campaign after the single, using the lyric that New York has “been waiting for you” as its tagline.
“We couldn’t have asked for a better synergy between Taylor and NYC & Company to tell our story about what makes New York City, New York City,” said the tourism agency president Fred Dixon in a statement.
Perhaps one reason why Taylor Swift is New York’s new tourism poster girl is left unspoken: Given her history, if she ever decides to pack it in and leave New York, she can certainly write one hell of a break-up song about it.
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What makes a real New Yorker? The experts speak.
1. New Yorkers power-walk. “Walking fast and knowing how to weave through human traffic is an art,” actress Emma Roberts told Vanity Fair.
2. New Yorkers have all been a crime victim and moved on. “I had someone rip my cellphone right out of my hand,” said Big Onion Tours owner Seth Kamil.
3. New Yorkers take the subway even though you know it has bed bugs or Ebola. “Getting on the IRT and figuring that out!” said Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider. “New Yorkers go underground.”
4. New Yorkers know their neighborhoods. “You’ve got your restaurants, your shops, and your places that you go where people know you, and not because you’re a celebrity,” says Snider.
5. New Yorkers hate the city, but can’t live without it. “Like any true love, it drives you crazy. But you know you wouldn’t change anything,” Taylor Swift wrote in “Welcome to New York.” Hey!
