Subway ads removed

I need to write more about New York. If I did I would have mentioned this a week or so ago. Some new ads went up in the subway a couple weeks ago. They are tourist ads for the Bahamas. They are colorful but a bit too cute for NYC. They ask you to imagine scuba diving through a subway car or fishing with your scarf on the platform. I wondered why they would allow them since, with millions seeing the ads there bound to be at least one idiot who would to try it.


This week they were ordered down after complaints and concerns.

The ad campaign by the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism is running on at least one out of four subway cars in the city and is potentially in view of as many as five million subway riders. It is standing out, but not necessarily because it's getting people onto planes. Under the heading "Instant Escape No. 1: How to Turn a Subway Seat into a Hammock," one advertisement seems to encourage riders to hog subway seats as if resting in a hammock.
Another ad seems to encourage riders to imitate fishing in the
Caribbean by snagging subway track detritus by putting something sticky on a cellphone and attaching it to a scarf. It's called "Instant Escape No. 2: How to Fly Fish with a Scarf and a Cell Phone." The ads seem to contradict the official rules of conduct of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which say hands-off trash on the track and no hogging of seats.
Some straphangers have criticized the campaign in blogs. A comment from David Yockelson, 41, an investment banker from Rye Brook, N.Y., was typical. "Possibly the most stupid and flagrant ad was this one, which laughingly suggests that travelers attach their cellphones to their scarves with tape, put more tape on the cellphone, and then cast the scarf-phone-fishing pole into the tracks and see what they can find," he wrote.