On & Off Broadway

The Ride

Review by Elyse Trevers

Posted

As real New Yorkers, we rarely sightsee. So I decided to become a tourist for an hour and a half and take the Ride, an interactive tour bus. You may have seen it traveling around the Broadway area. Billed as part tour / part show, the bus has two young people with microphones who narrate the sights while they toss out amusing patter.

The bus, which holds 49 people all facing a wall of windows, slowly traverses the streets of midtown. The bus doesn’t cover much ground: the Chrysler Building, Columbus Circle, Bryant Park, crossing over Fifth and Madison avenues.

In addition to the hosts, the ‘voice’ of the bus itself provides some jokes but, more interestingly, some facts and stats about N.Y. sights and buildings. The best part of the trip is the street performers — the ballet dancers on Columbus, the musicians around the corner from Carnegie Hall and the rap singer who included many of the passengers’ names in his song. In some cases, the performances that delighted the passengers barely got a reaction from people on the street. In fact, the bus itself got more attention than the performers as many people pointed and waved to us on the bus.


This trip is more exciting for out-of-towners than for those of us who live here. The 11 Croatians on our trip had a blast, as did the precocious 7-year-old girl from the Midwest. Some of the commentary were jokes and laughs perpetuating negative stereotypes about New York and New Yorkers.

The Ride has been entertaining tourists since 2010. It will appeal most to folks in New York for the first time. The Ride ends with a karaoke version of “New York, New York” sung loudly and enthusiastically by the passengers. Next time they return, they can go on the newest show in the fleet, The Tour, a multimedia sightseeing adventure.