Advice for Shooting Authentically in New York City

Directors: If you are concerned when your writer proposes to populate your circa 2003 New York City streetscape with the following characters, please rest assured that these are not fantastical or implausible, but just the opposite. They are as real as real gets.
1) An older man in a yellowing undershirt and trousers carrying a large zither many blocks from the nearest zither repair shop or flea market.
2) A younger woman in an ever-so-slightly too-small Chanel tanktop and slacks, with large (Chanel, obviously) sunglasses on her needs-a-touchup blonde hair, Jimmy Choo shopping bags in the crook of her tanned arm, screaming into a tiny cell phone nestled gingerly between her french manicured nails and her made up face, “Well then I AM a bad dog mommy, because I still have to go to Barney’s!”