Manager: My son likes white girls. I’m like, ‘Boy, don’t you know white people smell funny?! They smell like chicken when it’s wet outside!’
Coworker: Oh, yeah, they do be smellin’ weird.
–DT store, 32nd St & 7th Ave
Overheard by: Tammy Scumbag
Manager: My son likes white girls. I’m like, ‘Boy, don’t you know white people smell funny?! They smell like chicken when it’s wet outside!’
Coworker: Oh, yeah, they do be smellin’ weird.
–DT store, 32nd St & 7th Ave
Overheard by: Tammy Scumbag
Drunk guy, matter-of-factly: Everyone comes in here and thinks they're smelling pot, when really they're just smelling Italians.
–Hammerstein Ballroom Men's Room
Young girl on cell: Well, I mean, I have eaten macaroni. Does that count as Italian?
–Grand Central
Overheard by: Kayla Monetta
Man on cell: And this guy smelled like shit! (pause) Yeah, I told him, "you smell like Italian."
–E 10th & 3rd Ave
Overheard by: molina1230
Loud bridesmaid at Guido wedding: I'm Sicilian from the waist up, American from the waist down.
–Brooklyn Botanic Garden
College guy to friend: From the minute they got here, they started eating. Italian feasts are pornography. Italian food is illicit sex to the puritans. Everything the puritans eat is bland and brown.
–Brooklyn College
Middle-aged, pot-bellied guy with a long pony-tail, stopping young woman on the street: Excuse me, but I just want to say, once you've had Italian food, you're not hungry for anything else. I just ate a calzone and now I'm going to go home and just go to sleep!
–8th St & Broadway
Overheard by: Not hungry either
Teen boy #1: I love the smell of the subway.
Teen boy #2: Why?
Teen boy #1: You know why.
–71st St & Broadway
Overheard by: Ladle
Tourist lady #1: Oh, it’s worth paying the cab fare. I mean, the subway…well, after September 11th it’s just not safe, you know?
Tourist lady #2: You’ve ridden the subway before?
Tourist lady #1: No, it smells weird.
–Hunt Valley bus
Overheard by: Katie Cheek
Prospective girl #1: OK, so tomorrow, let’s all wear our “I Heart NY” t-shirts.
Prospective girl #2: Yeah! And I can wear my Columbia sweatshirt over it!
–Morningside Heights
Toddler: Why is Jack-Jack’s name “Jack-Jack”? Why not regular Jack?
Mom: That’s just a nickname. I think his real name is just plain Jack.
Toddler: Can my nickname be Johann-Johann?
–1 train
Overheard by: Matt G
NYU punk girl: Whatever. I just don’t like him, okay?
NYU punk guy: I just don’t think him being smelly should have anything to do with it.
–Washington Square Park
Suit on cell: I swear, I’m going to make her the sorriest crippled girl in New York.
–Avenue C
Hipster on iPhone: Hello? I’m sorry. I can’t hear you–I have an iPhone.
–6th & 27th
Hipster girl to out-of-town friend: Sorry about the smell, this area just recently gentrified.
–Orchard Street b/w Broome & Grand
Loud, drunk, British girl to boyfriend: We don’t know each other’s minds -we can’t read each other’s minds! So when you do something I don’t like and I tell you and then later you do something I don’t like and I tell you again… Well that’s two sorries in one day! And "sorry" is just a word, but you’re learning about me! About my mind.
–Broadway & Waverly
Overheard by: rpk
Woman on cell: Oh sorry, I have to go. Remember that woman that got pregnant by a bear? Yeah, I just ran into her.
–Astor Place
Dominican to friend: And just wait until I tell them all he’s Dominican… he’ll really be sorry then!
–5th Ave, near Empire State Building
Overheard by: Rich Mintz
Woman at bar to her friend: Ok, I know I’m an art dealer, but I’m like, the least bourgeois person I know.
–Smith & Mills (restaurant in Tribeca)
Overheard by: the lerpa
Little boy to friends: There are are four really big, important artists: Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir and… Pistachio.
–Impressionism Room, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Overheard by: I love Pistachio’s green period
Young girl: These paintings smell nice and fresh!
–The Met
Angry white suburban artist to Jews for Jesus: Stop talking! You are pushing this on me without me asking -that makes you a cult. Go away. We don’t like your kind here -we are all white suburban artists.
–Morgan L Stop on Bogart
Overheard by: not a hipster
Gangsta: Dali? Ain’t he like, Picasso or some shit?
–The Met
Freshman girl to friend: It smells like ass in here.
Junior girl with purple hair: I think it smells like stinky vagina!
–Queens College Campus
Overheard by: Lindsay
Girl, as subway doors open: It smells like ass.
Guy: It's New York City, were you expecting sunshine and rainbows?
–Uptown F Train
Man, to old woman pouring paint thinner into the sewer: You know, you’ll kill the alligators like that.
–39th & Lex
Methodone lover: I told him, “If you do that again, I’m gonna sic the alligators on you!”
–Whitehall Ferry Terminal
Overheard by: Steven Lowell
Tourist, kneeling in front of a giant stone head: Help me, Olmec! Where is the shrine of the silver monkey?
–Museum of Natural History
Chelsea boy: Yeah…My God, the boys there were so hot! Their asses were all tight and round…Mmm…like a Chihuahua’s.
–19th & 6th
Overheard by: CocteauBoy
5-Year-Old boy, passing the smelly horse carriages on Central Park South: Eww, are there camels around here?
–59th between Broadway & 7th
Overheard by: Carmiya Weinraub
Old man, passing bear sculpture: Bears eat too much.
–American Wing Cafe, the Met
Overheard by: guingel
MTA hardhat: Yeah, for lunch I’ll have either the rat on a stick or the pigeon on a stick.
–Bleecker & Lafayette
Overheard by: Brewster
Guy on cell: I just saw a pigeon, and it reminded me of you.
–Houston & Bowery
Overheard by: Jon A.
Commuter: Oh, I’ve always been into manatees.
–Penn Station
Overheard by: Jon
Woman, to child: That’s why imagination is really nice. You can imagine that cat you have always wanted, and it’s almost like having him for real…even though you never will.
–53rd & Broadway
Animal lover: I never used to like cats. But then I had this dream where this cat, like, told me, “I love you,” so I got a cat.
–10th St & 1st Ave
Bus rider: My son’s frog jumped up there, and now I can’t take a poop.
–Q101 bus
Overheard by: Kaleena
Suit: No, no, it’s a woman with a donkey, not two donkeys! Jesus.
–14th St 1 station
Non-Ghetto woman on cell: That’s nigga’s crazier than a road lizard!
–59th & 7th
Picky girl: You won’t believe the pick up line he used. He actually said, “I want to be your beast.”
–The Strand, Broadway
Overheard by: Miss Parker
