Public Transportation

Conductor: Stand clear of the closing doors. Person in the back of the train, step out into the train. Step into the train! Excuse me, in the back with the grey shirt, step into the train. Yes you! I’m looking right at you! Oh my god! Ladies and gentlemen, we’re being held in the station because someone in the back of the train wearing a grey shirt is blocking the doors.

–B Train

Conductor [as passengers keep blocking the subway doors from closing]: You’re invited!

–1 Train

Conductor: Stand clear of the closing doors. [Alert signal, doors re-open.] Goddamit! There’s always someone… Isn’t there?

–R Train

Conductor, in completely empty train: Ladies and gentlemen, if you get to the train and it is full, don’t try to force your way in. Don’t block the way of the door closing either. I don’t want any body parts obstructing them. Also, if you get to the train as the doors are closing, don’t try to pry them back open. Don’t try sticking your arms in between them either. Very bad idea. Just stand on the platform, wave, and say: "Bye bye, train".

–A Train

Snarky train conductor: Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. It’s very simple: We open the doors, you get on, we close the doors. If you are going to walk past two or three doors trying to find a car or space that you like, don’t be surprised if the doors close on you before you can get on. We are not mind-readers.

–B Train

Conductor, to guy holding train doors for his girlfriend: Sir, please let the doors close, we can’t wait for your girlfriend. [Some time passes.] Sir, you are young and not unattractive, I am sure you can find someone else to sleep with you on the train.

–L Train

Eight-year-old boy to another: You usta play dirty house with her!

–E 9th St & Ave A

Overheard by: Fred Daubert

Visibly annoyed ghetto-fab young lady, while loudly cracking her gum: They too many nationalities on this bus and most of them don’t be clean.

–57th St Bus

Overheard by: tinyfoo

Chick, looking at rat sipping from puddle: Eeeww, how can he drink that? It’s so dirty!

–6 Platform, Grand Central

Guy on escalator, to friend: … Dirty sandwich…

–E Train

Overheard by: M_C

Male student: Either you’re a dirty, stinking hippie, or you’re pretentious.

–Bard High School Early College Library

Thuggish hobo: Please! Somebody talk dirty to me!

–Washington Square Park

Girl to friends, while walking past bar: Oh, this is the place I got drunk at, then woke up in Queens.

–40th & 7th

Overheard by: Jesse

Drunk Italian guy, entering uptown NRW station: Uptown and Queens? That’s where all the pussy is!

–23rd & Broadway

Overheard by: Zarek

Middle-aged black woman on phone: I can see all Queens from up in here, nigga. Aw, damn, I can see that Rhode Island shit now.

–Roosevelt Island Tram

Overheard by: Jack Fleming

20-Something hipster girl on cell: Why do you have to get off the phone? You’re eating? Again? You big fat ass… God, I hate Queens.

–Queens Bridge

Overheard by: SL

Conductor over loudspeaker: You are now on the N train running to Queens… Unlike yesterday when I was in Queens running the train on all of youse. Enjoy.

–N Train

Overheard by: Kevin

Voice from dressing room stall: I am at a Sears in Queens. S. O. S.

–Sears, Rego Park, Queens

Overheard by: Ladle

White chick, examining bacteria plate: Aww, my bacteria are so cute. I have like pink ones!
Blondie: Lemme see. Ewwww… Is that what you colonized from your hand?
White chick: Yeah…?
Blondie: Ewww, you’re dirty, don’t touch me.
White chick: Fuck you, I go on the subway all the time.
Asian chick: Me too. Hey, I have some white colonies on my finger culture… Maybe I have some white in me after all.
White chick: And I have some yellow colonies! Together, we are a perfect rainbow of transcultural germs.
Asian chick: Awesome.

–Barnard Biology Lab

Overheard by: Vicksburg

Girl: As long as I don’t get that anthrax thingy I’m cool with the chicken.

–Elevator 112 west 34th st

Overheard by: Rebecca

Five-year-old: Why do babies look like chickens?

–Nederlander Theatre

Overheard by: Jordan

Man explaining menu to wife: You know fried chicken: the chicken with the crust.

–Virgils BBQ, 44th St

Overheard by: fish

Teacher, after seeing one of her seven-year-old students smell an empty subway seat: Sienna, there are 10,000 people a day sitting in that very seat. What do you think it would smell like? Chicken?

–F Train

Overheard by: Marlene Saunders

Woman to man: Everyone loves when you throw the chicken.

–Court & Joralemon, Brooklyn Heights

Toddler in grocery cart seat: Do you know any songs?
Toddler in adjacent grocery cart seat (singing): I’ve been working of the F train, all the live long day, I’ve been working on the F train just to pass the time away; can’t you hear the whistle blowing, rise up so early in the ‘morn, can’t you hear the captain shouting, “stand clear of the closing doors!”

–Food Coop, Park Slope

Overheard by: Brooklyn, Baby!

Young college girl #1: So she said to do Kegel exercises when you are on the subway.
Young college girl #2: That makes sense. When you’re on the subway no one knows you are doing them!
Young college girl #3: [tries to wrap legs over head] Is this how you do them? Wait, aren’t they supposed to make you tighter?

–E Train

Overheard by: I do them at work

Bus driver, on loudspeaker: If your stop is Main street, please get off here.
Punk high school kid in back of bus: Fuckin’ asshole!
Bus driver, on loudspeaker: Yo mama.

–Q88 Bus

Overheard by: quite amused

Conductor: Use all available doors, please. Don’t be afraid of open doors.

–6 Train

Overheard by: Jon A.

Man looking at the BDSM exhibit: That’s not scary. I have one of those!

–Museum of Sex

Overheard by: Rachel K

Big black man to his big black friends: Yo, and I was totally afraid he’d crush my vagina.

–Starbucks, 9th & 57th

Overheard by: newsyspice

Homeless guy: I don’t know why all you people are looking at me scared! This is my game face! Halloween is over!

–G Train

Overheard by: drum

Teen dude: You just can’t be tall and survive on a mountain!

–Halloween Adventure, 11th St & 4th Ave

Overheard by: da sarkastik ninja.

Teenage boy: Girls are so lucky… They can feel themselves up whenever they want.

–LIRR

High school girl: I said to her: "What they call you?" … And she said, "TND". And I said, "’TND’?, What’s ‘TND’"? And she said "Top Notch Diva". [Howls with laughter.] She said "Top notch". Nobody say "Top notch"… That was like, last summer… Top notch… [laughs and snickers] and then she say: "What they call you?" and I said "BB"… "Betta bills". [Howls with laughter.]

–#1 Train

Teen boy, with a sigh: Sometimes the world just isn’t as shiny as you want it to be.

–42nd St

Teenager to Mexican friend: Don’t make me call immigration on you.

–Q train, to 57th st

Overheard by: LoRna

Teen: I like the beginning part of the Dido song "Thank you", you know, the depressing part, because I can relate to it. Well, aside from the parts about missing the bus because I have a car and paying bills because my parents do that for me.

–Union Square

Overheard by: UCB