The Leica File: The Tourist & Magnolia Bakery

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy- All Rights Reserved (Click To Enlarge)

The West Village in NYC is not totally taken over by Wall Streeters, fashionistas, movie stars, pooping dogs and cranky old people....it also has its share of 'cupcake tourists'.

The Magnolia Bakery opened in 1996 at Bleecker Street (one of the most sought after retail streets in the city), and is said to have started a cupcake mania. I walk Bleecker Street often, and there are usually long lines of customers waiting to binge on cupcakes.  Most of the customers are either very large tourists from out of town (ie Texas) or real tourists from Europe and Asia. Those who emerge from the bakery with their (I'm told, overly sweet) cupcakes, brandish them triumphantly like trophies for their friends to snap their pictures.

But how can a tourist, if alone and with a cupcake, record such a historical life-altering event for posterity? Well, she could do what this young woman is doing. She has it in a paper plate...aligns it carefully with the bakery's store name, and clicks her point & shoot. There...her folks, friends back home will know for sure she's been at the "famous" bakery and had one of its confections.

I suppose I could stand there with my camera and offer my services, but I might get paid in cupcakes.

For more on my street photography efforts, go to The Leica File.