Names

Conductor: Welcome to another day on the N train, ladies and gentlemen. If you will look out the window to your right you will see absolutely nothing!

–N train

Conductor on speaker: Kings Highway?! Why’s it gotta be Kings Highway?

–B train, Kings Highway station

Overheard by: I feel his pain

Lady conductor: Attention, ladies and gentlemen, blah blah blah, blah blah blah. If you need to get to 28th Street, 23rd Street, or 18th Street, well, you’re screwed.

–1 train, 34th St

Overheard by: Nettle

Conductor: There’s another train right behind us. There really is. I can see the lights. It could be a bus, but we are in a tunnel underground with tracks running through it, so I’m sure there is another F train behind us.

–F train

Overheard by: I can see the light too

Conductor: Please take small children as you exit the train… Oh… I mean, please take small children by the hand as you leave the train.

–NJ Transit, Penn Station

Cheerful conductor: Ladies and gentlemen, there is no downtown 2 train, but luckily we’re going uptown, so it doesn’t matter.

–2 train

Overheard by: andy kleiman

Conductor: We’re not the NYPD or the FDNY, New York’s finest and bravest. Above or below ground, we’re the MTA, and we move New York. Ya heard?!

–A train, between 125th & 59th St

Asian man: What seems to be the problem?
Security official: Other than the fact that your passport and your ticket have two completely different names on them, nothing.

–JFK Security

Tourist #1: Hey look, that's Carnegie Hall!
Tourist #2: Not it isn't. The sign says “Carnegie Deli.”

–54th & 7th

Random old dude #1: You shoulda seen how this girl was lookin at me.
Random old dude #2: Oh, yeah?
Random old dude #1: Yeah… I swear, she was standing in the literature section. Hell, the only thing she knows about Dickens is the first four letters of his last name, as in “She needs some dick!”
Enthusiastic shop girl: Hi, are you doing okay here?
Random old dude #1, embarrassed: Uhhh…sorry.

–St. Mark's Bookstore, Stuyvesant St & 3rd Ave

Overheard by: manishm

Sorority chick leaving a democratic rally where hillary clinton spoke: God, they all sounded so political!

–Wagner College

5 year-old boy (to his mother): Is it true that obama's going to raise taxes?

–Union Square

Overheard by: Jen

Woman on cell: I'm trying to find joe sixpack. (pause) no, I don't know joe sixpack.

–98th & Broadway

Several middle-aged, wealthy #40 something upper east side ladies at the dinner table next to us at a french restaurant, discussing politics. The last point on sarah palin: "her hair's fine, her glasses are fine, her clothes are ok but I'm sorry, she's a fucking loser."

–Jacques Brasserie — Upper East Side

Overheard by: Lindsey Miller

Drunk girl: "if lil' wayne was president, things would be running much more smoothly."

–E Houston St & Lafayette St,

Overheard by: Teddy

"my cousin said that obama is the antichrist."
(pause).
"that's mad rude, right?"

–M66

Overheard by: Charley

Woman #1: He works at a law firm…the name of which I can’t remember.
Woman #2: Oh, Dead Guy, Dead Guy, Dying Guy, and Never There Guy…LLC.

–Carroll Gardens

Overheard by: Myrddins

Woman: Is that Perhaps?
Man: What?
Woman: Is that Perhaps?
Man: “Perhaps“?
Woman: Yeah, there’s this dog called Perhaps that hangs around here. Yours looks just like it.

–Carl Schurz Park, Upper East Side

Overheard by: guillermo echevarria

Girl #1: I wonder where Austria is.
Girl #2: It must be by Australia, because they sound the same.

–Bus

Overheard by: David

Guy #1, discussing Plaxico Burress: Who the hell would name their kid “Plaxico”? Sounds like the name of an equine.
Guy #2: A what?
Guy #1: A horse, nigga.
Guy #2: Sheeeit!

–Whitehall & Water

Overheard by: PJ P.

Conductor: Next stop, the street formerly known as Prince Street.

–R train

Overheard by: Rachel Kolb