New York mayoral candidate Andrew Yang mocked as ‘tourist’ after naming favourite subway station

Yang nominated Times Square as his favourite stop, prompting social media users to question whether he’s a ‘real New Yorker’

Yang, the former presidential candidate, is among the leading candidates in the Democratic primary for mayor

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Unlike most of the other leading contenders, Andrew Yang has never held a job in city government before. Photo: Reuters

Published: 11:55am, 25 May 2021Updated: 9:46pm, 25 May 2021

New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang, who has drawn fire for not voting in city elections and for having a second home upstate, was mocked as a “tourist” by some people on social media on Monday for naming Times Square as his favourite subway station.

To Yang, the choice was a simple one. That’s the stop closest to his Manhattan home.

“It’s my stop, so Times Square,” Yang said in an interview with the comedian Ziwe on her Showtime programme, to which the comic reacted with more than a little disbelief.

Yang replied, “It’s big. It’s cavernous. There are entertainers there. Sure, what’s not to like?”

People who don’t like Yang pounced on social media, with some questioning how much of a New Yorker he could really be. Real New Yorkers, they said, stay away from tourist-choked Times Square if they can.

But Yang’s campaign and his family saw something else in the comments: racism.

“It’s hard to tell what offends them more – that his family has lived near that subway stop for 25 years or that he’s an Asian American,” Yang’s communications director, Alyssa Cass, said.

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