Boricua chick #1: So does your new boyfriend go to school?
Boricua chick #2: Yeah, he goes to some fancy-ass school in Manhattan… BMCC or somethin' like that.
–Queens Blvd
Boricua chick #1: So does your new boyfriend go to school?
Boricua chick #2: Yeah, he goes to some fancy-ass school in Manhattan… BMCC or somethin' like that.
–Queens Blvd
Girl: Did you hear about Barbara Walters and the affairs she had when she was younger? It shocked me.
Guy: Why'd it shock you? A lot of these older people did a lot of crazy shit when they were younger, from violence to sex. How do you think at least 50% of us were born? And she looked kinda good then, I'd have done 'er.
Girl (shaking her head): Just about everybody is fucked up.
Guy (growling and laughing): Don't groan about it, it's nature baby. Us people today are just the latest ones on the scene.
–8th St & 6 Ave
Overheard by: savon
Girl looking at garbage and dirt spilled on the sidewalk: Gross. You think it’s supposed to be art?
–Broadway & Houston
Literature professor: So anything that anybody ever painted was a Guido?
–NYU Silver Center
Plausibly mad septuagenarian clerk: When I was 16 Stravinsky bought my first painting. It was written up in the paper. A couple of days later, I was kidnapped.
–Barnes & Noble, Lincoln Center
Overheard by: Seth
Father to four-year-old son: Looking at art makes your legs tired.
–Metropolitan Museum Lobby
Philistine: I don’t like art in which you have to understand the motivation behind it.
–Outside the Guggenheim
Overheard by: Devoted Puppy
Professor-type man to group of teens looking at Greek sculptures: And if the sculpture’s back is up against the wall and you want to see it from behind, just get up against a wall and look at its ass as much as you can… yeah! It’s not dirty or wrong… Just look at its ass!
–Metropolitan Museum of Art
Girl #1: Yeah, but the more time I spent in New York, the more I realized it's just full of hustlers.
Girl #2, extremely emphatic: Oh, yeah! Everyone I know in New York is a hustler! (long contemplative pause)
Girl #2: 'cept my cousin.
–Jet Blue Plane Taking Off, JFK
Blonde white girl to another: And I was all like, "I'm not throwing the baby over the fence!"
–Spring St
Overheard by: Maria Emma
Girl to mother: Oh, look at daddy with the baby in one hand and the bottle of bourbon in the other. And in the morning, too!
–Williamsburg
Condom vendor: Obama and McCain election special condoms! 3 for $10 and 1 for $5, all cheaper than a baby!
–Times Square
Overheard by: Aalok
Mom with stroller to friend: She's incapacitated already, so she might as well have his baby.
–6th Ave & 4th St
Girl #1: Ohmigosh, I just bought scratch ‘n sniff underwear! With an apple on it!
Girl #2: Why the hell would you want to scratch your ass and then sniff it?
–66th & Broadway
Girl to friend: She has a Shakespeare quote tattooed on her body, so she must be smart.
–Bleecker St
Overheard by: Lyssa
Middle aged dude to another: That fucken bitch, man. I wish I had her on a t-shirt instead of on my chest and back.
–Prince & Lafayette
Slightly ghetto white girl on cell: What happens when a bug bites you on your tattoo?
–D Train
Overheard by: 4-dumb
Tourist grandmother to eight-year-old granddaughter: Do, do you like mommy's new neck tattoo? (pause) Yeah, me neither.
–Times Square
Overheard by: Jas
Tourist girl: Oh my god, did you see them? Did you see the lesbians?
Bored guy friend: Yes.
Tourist girl: That was so cool!
–1st & York
Overheard by: Not quite as excited
11-year-old girl: Yo mamma's broke cuz she spend all her money on rhinestones and cigarttes!
–Riverside Branch Library
Overheard by: always listening
Polite lady: Go straight down that way and cut through the projects–don't worry, they're mixed income–and you'll see it when you come out on A.
–1st Ave & 5th St.
Overheard by: Mrqs
Old lady waiting for the bathroom: How long do people stay in toilets? Jesus! It's a public toilet! There are all these people from the streets that come in, and they always pee on the floor. Well, that's what happens when you're poor.
–NY Public Library
Overheard by: Avery
Homegirl to friend: So she was like "oh, my name's Diamond. And this is my sister, her name's Ruby. Our daddy named us after stuff he can't afford." I was like, shit, if that was the case, my daddy woulda call us "lights" and "gas."
–Prospect Park
Nerdish teen: What the hell was a warlock doing in a dungeon when he had no money?
–C Train
Overheard by: Andrew
Guy hitting on girl: So where are you from?
Disinterested girl: New York.
Guy hitting on girl: No, where are you originally from?
Disinterested girl: My parents.
–East Village Bar