By ANDREW SANTIS

STAFF WRITER

“Mommy! Mommy! It’s Elmo!,” cries out a little boy who spots the furry, red monster from a distance. “Mommy! Mommy! It’s Mickey Mouse!” cries out another boy who sees the iconic mouse waving to him from a street corner.

No, these children are not at Sesame Street or Disney World. If they were, the Elmo and Mickey Mouse would not be so creepy looking or be demanding a tip for posing for a picture. These children are in Times Square where knockoff Elmos and knockoff Mickey Mouses, along with fake Cookie Monsters, phony Hello Kitties and bogus Spongebobs, roam the Crossroads of the World, preying on tourists and blockhead New Yorkers, for a picture and tip.

Just two weeks ago, two-year old Samay Kurada and his mother Parmita were in Times Square when they made the fateful decision to pose with Cookie Monster. The supposedly harmless, furry, blue, cookie-obsessed Sesame Street monster demanded a $2 tip for posing with Samay. Parmita said that when she told the Cookie Monster that her husband needed to get cash, Cookie Monster pushed the boy and began calling her and the child obscene names.

The man in the Cookie Monster costume, 33-year-old Osvaldo Quiroz-Lopez, was charged with assault, child endangerment and aggressive begging. In September 2012, Adam Sandler, a.k.a. Elmo, was arrested for going on an anti-Semitic rant in Times Square. He was also arrested earlier that year for harassing people in Central Park. In December 2012, Damon Torres, formerly Times Square’s Super Mario, was arrested for groping a woman. In February 2012, Philip Williams, once Spider-Man, was arrested for assaulting a woman who refused to tip him after he had taken a picture with her two kids.

Besides the recent arrests, the cartoon characters have been caught drinking, urinating in public, using foul language and even fighting each other for pictures with tourists, especially when there is more than one of each character.

Now do not get me wrong. I do not despise the people who dress up as these cartoon characters. They are, for the most part, trying to make a living, even if it means making $30-$50 like Laura Vanegas (Lady Liberty) might make in an eight-hour shift, or wearing a costume in the summer time and risk fainting, dehydration or a heat stroke.

What I do not like is how they have become the unofficial mascots of the city and how they have added to the congestion of the already narrow streets of Times Square.

Their reputation, as just described, is not great either. Let us not forget that Times Square has always been the city’s blemished district. In the 1980s, Times Square was plagued with crime and pornography.

Today, ugly and useless pedestrian plazas attract swarms of homeless people and street performers to the area, making it impassable during every hour of the day.

Now, with these cartoon characters walking along the street, pestering every passersby, I find myself avoiding Times Square altogether.

So what to do with these characters? According to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the city cannot just kick them off the streets.

“Dressing up in a costume and walking around Times Square is, we believe, a First Amendment-protected activity,” Quinn said when she addressed the Cookie Monster incident.

At the moment there is no regulation for the Times Square cartoon characters, but City Councilman Peter Vallone has been looking to “come up with a way to make this safer, with an eye toward background checks and licenses.” Hopefully the City Council will limit the number of characters that can stand in Times Square (as many as 52 were spotted one afternoon), and prevent them from constantly coming up to people asking them to take a picture. Let the chumps — I mean customers — come to you, okay, Dora the Explorer?

Times Square is the heart of New York. It is a pity that it continues to have a bad reputation. Everyone dreams of coming to the Big Apple to see the lights, watch a play on Broadway, shop and have a bite to eat at a famed New York City restaurant. They did not come to take a picture with a fake Elmo.

Both tourists and New Yorkers can do without these creepy cartoon characters. They mean no harm, at least we think, but there is no need for them here. New York does not need a mascot. Disney World and Sesame Street do.

But, regardless of my feelings, if these “street performers” could make it here, should they not be able to make it anywhere?

Andrew Santis, GSB ’16, is a marketing major from Flushing, N.Y.