Little boy: Daddy, daddy! I wanna make a bear!
Buff dad: Nigga, I done told you a thousand times, thugs don’t make bears! [Tiny black boy bursts into tears.]
–Outside of Build a Bear Workshop, at 6th St & 5th Ave
Overheard by: Becca
Little boy: Daddy, daddy! I wanna make a bear!
Buff dad: Nigga, I done told you a thousand times, thugs don’t make bears! [Tiny black boy bursts into tears.]
–Outside of Build a Bear Workshop, at 6th St & 5th Ave
Overheard by: Becca
Teenage girl: My mom is always walkin’ in on me having sex. I’m all like, mom what the fuck, I’m all having sex. Get the fuck out.
Teenage boy: Oh daaamn, I hate that. I always turn the music up real loud so my mom can’t hear me fuck. I fucked my girl to that Akon song. I was in her so deep and that shit was just pumpin’!
Girl: Ohh daaamn.
Boy: You need to tell your mom to get all out yo shit.
Girl: Yeah, she’s always walkin’ in right in the middle and I’m all like, mom get out. Then she tells me she didn’t know, and I’m like, mom I don’t got to tell you every time I’m having sex.
–Target, Brooklyn
Overheard by: Nate
Straight Jewish boy: Oh, man, with going now to see the Assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford, plus I saw 3:10 to Yuma last week, I’m going to have seen two westerns in the past two weeks. I feel so manly.
Hipster girl: Don’t worry, we can go get you a throw pillow later.
–Outside the Angelika
Hobo: Hey, contribute to the marijuana cause!
Rock kid: No, that’s okay.
Hobo: I know you smoke — your parents don’t know, but I know, and so do you.
–Waverly Theater, 6th Ave
Little boy: I have the humor of a thousand men.
–LIRR to Huntington
Boy #1: And I will milkshake all over your back.
Boy #2: And I will rub my lovely lady lumps all over your face.
–6 train
Overheard by: Alisha J.
Hot blonde: Do they kick in kick boxing?
–Upper West Side
Overheard by: haha
Tourist pointing to a church: Is that the Chrysler Building?
–E 10th & Broadway
Little boy, when train jerks to a stop: Did we just hit a deer?
–Manhattan-bound N train
Overheard by: paratactical
Teen tourist: Look, I know you guys have, like, musical theatres on Broadway and stuff, but do you guys have movie theaters?
–Canal & Broadway
Tourist pointing at S train car: This is the bus that will take us to Times Square, right?
–Platform for shuttle from Grand Central to Times Square
Overheard by: the answer is yes, but you’re not right
Young girl on phone: Hells yeah, I walked out of that class! I don’t even get why we still learn about immigration. I mean, who the fuck takes boats here anymore?
–23rd & Lex
Father to son: You see, women do the shopping, so you gotta go to a good store to find a good woman.
–Penn Station
Overheard by: Trainspotter
Young boy to guy accompanying him: There are things that Americans can do better. We can burp a lot louder than Chileans. And we can spend a lot more money while shopping.
—Tom Crean: Antarctic Explorer performance, Irish Repertory Theatre
Overheard by: Michael Baker
Dude to friend: … So every time he signs for a purchase on a credit card, he signs it ‘Not valid’ and Best Buy was the only store that ever caught it!
–Burns St, Forest Hills
Woman seeing old friend, and pointing to man beside her: Yeah, this is my new husband. He buys me Neiman Marcus. My old husband bought me Stein Mart.
–C train
Overheard by: Sarah F.
Valley girl tourist to street sweeper: Excuse me, where’s the mall?
–34th & 7th
Overheard by: Really!
Girl on cell: … That basically means your mother’s a whore.
–WaMu Bank, Staten Island
Overheard by: staten’s most hated
Guy: My mom was yelling at me, and at that moment I became aware of my consciousness. I mean, I really became aware of my being! I was at the top of the stairs, just thinking about the universe. That’s when I knew I really existed.
–Westway Diner
Thug: I’m gonna smack my mother’s monkey!
–Union Square
Overheard by: confabulation Nation
Employee on intercom: Yo’ mama, call extension 319*. Yo’ mama, 319.
–TJ Maxx, 6th Ave
Punk rocker to punk girlfriend: My mother knows what you are.
–11th & 1st
Young boy skipping by elevators, singing: Step on a crack and you break your mother’s back… [Begins stomping] Take that, mother! And that, mother! And that, mother…!
–Museum of Natural History
Overheard by: SBS
