Tourist lady #1: Look Sherry, there’s the tree.
Tourist lady #2: Wow, great! I’m soooo excited. (sees it) That’s it? Looks bigger on TV!
Tourist lady #1: Everything looks bigger on TV. Oprah isn’t really that fat.
Passerby: This ain’t Rockefeller Center ladies, go back to Kansas.
–Bryant Park Tree, 6th Ave & 41st
Overheard by: tonyElev
Tourist: Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to MoMA from here?
Suit: Fuck you, what do I look…
Tourist, indignantly interrupting: No, fuck you, you motherfucking piece of shit. You don’t want to answer, you say “I don’t know”. All you New Yorkers are a bunch of cock-sucking assholes.
[Suit, stunned, gives directions.]Bystander to tourist: Where did you learn to do that?
Tourist: The Midwest.
–Outside the Guggenheim
Overheard by: Ehem.
Boy, looking at table full of cheap souvenirs: Hey mom!
Embarrassed mom: No, those are for tourists. We live here!
–Near Trinity Church
Overheard by: amused tourist
Drunk guy with thick NY accent: You girls… You girls are visiting the greatest city in the world.
Drunk tourist girls: [giggle.]Drunk guy with thick NY accent: You wanna know why? You wanna know why this is the greatest city in the world?
Drunk tourist girl #1: Why?
Drunk guy with thick NY accent: ‘Cause I can stand right here on the street and ask you to suck my balls.
Drunk girl #1: Um, you can ask us that anywhere.
Drunk girl #2: Yeah… We’re from Wisconsin and people there ask us that all the time.
–Thompson and Bleecker
Overheard by: I guess the Cheeseheads are more brazen than we thought
Running jaywalker: The worst car to get hit by is a Mini Cooper!
–University & 10th St
Overheard by: Knows trucks that beg to differ
Old man crossing the street, on cell: I’m crossing the fucking street!
–42nd & Broadway
Guy wearing yarmulke, to friend: Hey, watch out! Just because you’re Jewish doesn’t mean cars won’t run you over.
–Columbus Circle
Tourist suit to other suit: New Yorkers are so rude. Just wait till you see how they all cross the street at red lights!
–Metro North Train to Grand Central
Overheard by: Courtney Messer
Cop on loudspeaker, to Asian bimbo tourist trying to walk down the middle of Canal St: Sidewalks are open to the public. Please use them.
–Canal Street
Overheard by: F Tourists
[Two cops are waiting at the light. A woman jaywalks and almost gets hit by a car.]
Male cop: Phew! That would have been a lot of paper work.
–44th & Broadway
Overheard by: Aimee
Guy with thick New York accent: Come on, let’s go.
[Dog lies down on back.]Guy: Don’t do that Mahatma Gandhi shit!
–Washington Square Dog Run
Overheard by: KidUgly
Random female tourist: Excuse me, can you tell me which way is the river?
Random angry new yorker: Which one, lady? You’re on a fucking island.
–9th & Broadway
Overheard by: Elan
Headline by: Jess
Runners-Up:
· “”Oh, Sorry. I’m Looking For, Um (Reading Guidebook) ‘Duh Fuckin’ River Wit Dah Steel Bitch Innit’…”” – Mike Chmiel
· “And That Was All Reba Needed For A Good Country Song” – cbeck
· “Generic Tourist ‘To Do’ List: “Get Insulted by New Yorker: – Check!” – Bassmanbish
· “Shit…Can You Tell Me How to Get to New York Then?” – lisa
· “The Map Crisis in America Doesn’t Just Apply to Beauty Pageants” – Erin
Blonde with group of tourists: Is New Jersey that way? [Points toward the west.]New Yorker: Yes, but there’s a river between here and there.
Blonde with group of tourists: You mean we can’t walk there?
New Yorker: Not really.
Blonde with group of tourists: Damn girls, what are we going to do tonight? We can’t go to Jersey and there’s nothing to do in New York.
–40th & 6th
Overheard by: Jersey, the state that never sleeps.
Professor: Old people will sign anything.
–Brooklyn College
Professor: What do you guys think of this poster? It annoys me. I would wear this on a t-shirt just to annoy people.
–Pratt Institute
Sociology professor: New York is a megalopolis, while Boston is only a metropolis, although Bostonites would argue that… Bostonites… Bostoners… Bostonians? Pshhh, whatever.
–Fordham University
Overheard by: Sromeo
Philosophy professor, drawing: Here is the world… Here are some birds… And people. Here’s someone… Here’s someone hitting someone with an ax. Some people do axings… Some people don’t.
–Fordham University
Overheard by: no axings!
Old professor with French accent: Hot climate is associated in this book with passion or sex. I think that I, for example, really never did have sex in a sub-zero temperature.
–NYU Cantor Film Center
Overheard by: suddenly surrounded by students’ awkward snickers
Sociology professor: I’ll tell you a story that most people laugh hysterically at, but it actually makes me really sad… Kind of like Napoleon Dynamite.
–Fordham University
Overheard by: Sromeo
Tourist suit: Excuse me, can you tell me where the Empire State Building is?
Guy: Just look up, man.
–32nd & 5th
Overheard by: still looks up
