Recent incidents of violence at Boston Common have some tour operators considering changing their routes.
Recent incidents of violence at Boston Common have some in the area on edge.
Monday was another busy day on the common for police, who responded after a man was apparently slashed with a knife.
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"He came back with the knife, and that was it. I had to jump on top of him, but I wasn't fighting, I was trying to break them up, I am a female," one woman, who said the victim is her husband, said Monday.
In recent months, a stabbing and a shooting also occurring in and near Boston Common.
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"We start getting tourists coming up and saying 'We just got slapped in the face, is that normal?' and we say, 'No that is not normal, you need to call the cops and report an assault,'" said Daniel Berger-Jones, head of the Boston History Company.
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Berger-Jones and his employees have been leading tours in the Common for years. Lately, they say things have taken a turn for the worse.
"I had a guide who kicked over a cup of used needles the other day, and he had to turn to all the parents on the tour and tell them, 'I need you to come this way so your kids don't step on these,'" he said.
Berger-Jones says one employee was also punched in the face recently while on break, adding to the unease.
"The sense that something bad could happen at any second, it is freaking everybody out. It is making my female guides particularly nervous about doing ghost tours, because you come out here in the evening to do ghost tours," Berger-Jones said. "It is nerve-wracking, there is a sense of danger."
On Monday, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said it remains a priority to make sure the popular tourist destination remains safe. The latest crime data for Boston Common was not available Monday.
"The first impression of our city is extremely important, and the downtown area and the Boston Common is where we welcome visitors from all over the world," Wu said. "We continue to make sure we are doing our part to make sure Boston remains the safest city in America."
Berger-Jones says he wants to see action though. He is starting to consider re-routing some of his tours away from the Common.
"It feels like we are waiting for the really bad thing to happen, there are minor bad things happening all the time, there are fist-fights happening here or everything starts to smell like urine at a certain point," he said. "When the first impression is, violence, screaming, the smell of urine everywhere, and a sense of danger, it is not a great first impression of Boston."
