Duck tours disrupt High Street

The giant amphibious vehicles with their yellow and blue logos barrel down major thoroughfares such as Greene, Lombard and Pratt streets, their music blasting and their tourist groups quacking as drivers bid them to give “a Duck salute.” 

Many Baltimoreans — myself included — dream of responding with a hunter’s salute — pow-pow right into the rubber tires. 

Outside the Baltimore Court House, a Duck tour bus idling at a red light switches its blaring music to the tune “Bad Boys,” as a police officer is arresting and handcuffing a man. Belly down, hands behind his back, the man being arrested is treated to his own personal soundtrack punctuated by the Duck’s annoying calls. Insensitivity aside, this is a city where the murder and crime rate ranks among the highest.

This quacking bunch with stereo blasting also barrels down residential streets like the one I live on — High Street —  in Little Italy.

Why does this gigantic amphibious bus filled with quacking tourists drive down a residential street?  Hey there’s the courthouse! Hey there’s Poe’s grave! Hey there’s a bunch of old Italian men sitting on the bench arguing about who won the bocce tournament! Do tourists really care about the antithesis of a star map where instead of celebrity houses it’s Tonys and Rosas? It’s tough to find space for a Fiat on the neighborhood’s tight streets, much less a bus that could double for a military vehicle.

It speeds down High Street, invariably, blaring an Italian operatic aria, or Dean Martin’s popular tune, “When the Moon Hits Your Eye Like a Big Pizza Pie. …” Funny how we never hear about Duck bus tours transporting tourists through any prominently black area with Tupac or 50 Cent or Snoop Dogg blasting from its speakers. Or perusing Greektown’s tight streets with the balalaika sounds of “Zorba the Greek” enveloping the tour bus. But, nooooo, it’s OK to stereotype the Italo-Americans in Little Italy with its already existing theme-park feel. And it’s OK to mock an elderly, demented neighbor who’s name sounds like but isn’t “John Travolta,”  stopping the Duck tour bus in front of his house and inviting tourists to say hello to “Baltimore’s own John Travolta.”

Granted, High Street is the area’s restaurant row, but restaurant row is sandwiched between four residential blocks on either end. Perhaps the company thinks High Street’s residential section exists to enhance the tours’ ambiance. I’ve actually heard one driver say, “Look at all the Little Italians. Waaave.” Ignoring this condescending theater only spurs the driver to say, “Oh, she needs the Duck salute!”

Saturday evenings in Little Italy offers organized chaos with increased traffic. The valet parking staff pick up and deliver vehicles; restaurants’ patrons drop off and pick up their parties. Limos, stretch limos, hotel vans, restaurant vans do the same. Residents returning from sundry events must circle blocks forever to find legal parking spaces. How does this increased traffic and stress affect the Duck tours? They speed faster down High Street, and their surly drivers exercise no common sense and no manners.

Consider this: On such a Saturday evening, the barreling Duck tour bus is forced to stop right in front of my house. A restaurant patron is loading an infant, sitting in an infant seat, into her car. A neighbor — seeing that a car is soon to be vacating a spot near his house — decides to wait for the lady to finish loading the infant so that when the lady leaves, he can slide into that space. A Duck tour driver finds this small wait excruciatingly painful. He opts to lay on his horn. Outside my house. His horn drowns out my stereo and the words of an 8-year-old. This sends me outside. I ask the driver to stop blowing the horn, saying, “Hey man, PEOPLE actually live here!”

His response? He looks directly at me, lays on his horn and keeps blowing it. Spitefully. The brazen and continuous blast drowns out Dean Martin’s “moon hitting eye” tune, and pierces everyone’s sanity. My neighbors emerge from their houses and watch as the Duck driver continues to blast the horn through the time it takes the lady to climb into her car, buckle up, and pull out of the space and for my neighbor to park. I have a salute for the Ride the Ducks tours, and it’s more akin to a moon and not a pizza on High Street.

  

Writer Rosalia Scalia is a lifelong Baltimorean and a lifelong Little Italy resident. Reach her at [email protected].