
NEGIN FARSAD, a filmmaker and comedian who lives in the East Village, recalled a time not long ago when European friends would visit New York to see her, and not, she said, to use her apartment as a "temporary locker for their shopping bags."
This summer, New York is awash with visitors from abroad, who are expected to top last summer's record number, tourism officials say. Thanks in part to home currencies that are holding strong against the dollar, even middle-class vacationers from Hamburg, Yokohama or Perth can afford to scoop up New York style — the clothes, the hot restaurants, the nightclubs — at bargain prices.
But for New Yorkers trapped on the other side of the currency imbalance, it's easy to feel ambivalent about the invasion. An infusion of foreign money is welcome in a city faced with a wobbly economy and a possible budget gap in the billions
You're in Easy Mode. If you prefer, you can use XHTML Mode instead. |