In the City of Angels, L.A. Gang Tours has begun giving tourists the opportunity to see the neighborhoods where famous groups like the Bloods and Crips and others operate. The effort is not the kind of cheesy operation found in cities like Chicago, which drive visitors around famous spots where John Dillinger was gunned down by federal agents. Rather, the Los Angeles venture is intended to raise awareness of life in the impoverished inner city and raise money that goes toward helping people through jobs or loan programs.

 

Although Francisco Ortega, a field staffer with the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission, sees the value in the new bus tours of South Central, he worries that they will make a spectacle of people in the ‘hood. “You’re being carted about: ‘Look at that cholo over there!’ It could be perceived as demeaning for the people who are living in these conditions. I don’t know how they're going to manage those perceptions,” Ortega told the Los Angeles Times.

 

Meanwhile, in the Big Apple, NYC Mob Tour is less interested in raising money for community improvement and more in exploiting the history of the city’s famous mob locales. Led by John (Cha Cha) Ciarcia, the tours will take people to locations where mafia bosses plotted murders and people were gunned down.

 

Giving Tourists a Look at Gang Culture (by Scott Gold, Los Angeles Times)

Wise Guys and Drive-Bys! Bus Service Will Do Tours of Mafia Hit Sites and Social Clubs (by Erica Pearson, New York Daily News)