Tourist, listening to subway performer: Wow, that song is nice!
Local: Yeah, that's the MTA theme song.
–Grand Central
Tourist, listening to subway performer: Wow, that song is nice!
Local: Yeah, that's the MTA theme song.
–Grand Central
Tourist: Is this our stop?
Helpful stranger: This train only got one stop!
Tourist: Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know. This is my first time on a subway!
Helpful stranger: Then get the fuck away from me! I don't want no tourist cooties!
–S Train
Overheard by: Heather
(a couple of guys want to get a picture of a taxi crashed into a lamppost)
Guy #1 (handing camera to passerby): Can you take our picture?
Guy #2: In front of the taxi. (pause) We're tourists.
New Yorker: Yeah, I know.
–Near Cake Shop
Overheard by: Shutterbug
Businesswoman, trying to pass woman down narrow sidewalk: Excuse me, you are walking very slowly.
Slow woman: I'm not in a rush.
Businesswoman: Where do you think you are, Connecticut?
–Fulton b/w Cliff & Gold
Overheard by: Zach
Tourist exiting theater (singing): You'll beeee in my heaaaart…
NYC native, hurrying through crowd: Death!
–Richard Rodgers Theater
Overheard by: office peon
Woman: Yeah, we just returned from a trip to Pennsylvania, and we were happily surprised to find that the people were normal.
Man: Normal like New Yorkers ?
Woman: Yeah, they didn't seem like they were from Harrisburg at all.
–Forest Ave & Bleecker St, Queens
Wannabe hip hop artist: Yo, you like hip hop?
Local: No. But he does. (points at random tourist standing still and disappears into the crowd)
–42nd & Broadway
Overheard by: Mike
Blonde tourist (after swiping futilely a few times): How do I swipe this?
New Yorker (looks at card in tourist's hand): That's not a Metrocard, that's your room key.
–E Train
Overheard by: Laura
Subway rider to Japanese tourist: You guys need to stick up for yourselves, man. You know what I’d say if I was from Japan? I’d say: "I am yokozuna, muthafucka!"
–E Train, 42nd St
Male customer to clerk, after computer system goes down: I guess you have some little Chinese guy in the back working on the problem.
–Brooklyn DMV
40something woman walking dogs to friend: You know, these dogs are half Chinese. With all these things going on in China, they get very upset! (friend gives skeptical look) I’m serious!
–Upper West Side
Crazy lady, to no one in particular: All Carpenter songs are actually Korean national anthems. If a Korean is bludgeoning you, just sing a national anthem and they will stop. If a Korean is bludgeoning you, just sing a national anthem and they will stop. It’s the Koreans who do most of the bludgeoning, and that’s what upsets me.
–99 Cent Pizza, 41st & 9th Ave
Overheard by: Michael O’Connor
Worker, sounding pleasantly surprised: Oh, Asians! Damn! Asians!
–Canal Street and Centre Street, Chinatown
New Yorker #1: I had to tell my kid when she went to college in Boston that nowhere else could compare to New York, to just find the best of where you are.
New Yorker #2: Yeah, I always found Boston to be provincial.
–6 Train
