Chick #1: So, that girl from Japan is paying double rent, right? $1600 on her apartment here, and $1800 on the other apartment where she was living. I asked her how she could afford both places and she told me that her Mom and her sister died in a plane crash.
Chick #2: Holy shit! Which plane crash?
Chick #1: I don’t know, one in Japan.
Chick #2: So she’s rich now, right?
Chick #3: That’s how my friend moved to Miami.
–Williamsburg
Chick #1: Hoboken just sounds dirty to me.
Chick #2: Why? Because like, “hobos”?
Chick #1: Yeah.
Chick #2: Well, it’s uplifting. Like, “hobos can!” get their lives together. It’s not called “hobo can’t.”
–9th Street PATH station
Drunk girl: I can’t believe I have to take this train to Hoboken! This is horrible! Thank God it’s just for tonight, I can’t imagine doing this every day! This is the worst!
Guy: Where in the city do you live?
Drunk girl: I live in Rutherford.
–PATH train
Overheard by: kt
Roach coach guy: How was your trip?
Hipster girl: Oh good! But I didn’t go…
–31st & 6th
Overheard by: Stephanie Landry
Guy #1: How was it?
Guy #2: It was cool. Paris was fun, except for a few days we spent at museums…We went one day to this place…The Love or something…I guess it was all right. There were definitely a lot of people there…Julie was freaking out about this one painting, though.
Guy #1: What painting?
Guy #2: The Mona Lisa.
Guy #1: …huh. Don’t think I know it…I’m not really an art person though.
Guy #2: Yeah, I didn’t know it either. It’s by Michelangelo I think. But I didn’t really get it…it’s really small.
–Union Square station
Overheard by: Stephanie Porto
Queer: Do you know why else I want to move to London? Camdentown. There are lots of punks.
Chick: But wouldn’t there also be a lot of white supremacists?
Queer: I could do white supremacists.
Chick: But aren’t they also homophobic?
Queer: No, just repressed.
–Law office, 50th & 8th
Teen girl: Wow, that’s so sad…
Woman: Yeah, they have no electricity, no water to drink, no food to eat, nothing.
Teen girl: Well, can’t they just boil the water on the ground and drink it? They say the city is flooded with like six feet of water.
Woman: No, honey, that water is way too contaminated to be boiled, and besides that, they don’t have electricity.
Teen girl: Oh that’s so sad. Where is that?
–LaGuardia
Overheard by: Holly Percey
Woman: So, what is it you like about New Orleans?
–Becco, W. 46th Street
Chick: Apparently there will be another September 11th this month.
–65th & Lexington
Girl: Looks like you got a tan this weekend.
Guy: Yeah, I was out on my friend’s boat but we ran out of gas in the harbor so we were out on the water for a while.
Girl: You know, that was one thing I kept thinking about all weekend, how inflated the price of marine diesel fuel must be.
Guy: It wasn’t my boat so I really don’t know.
They get off the elevator.
Human being: You know, the one thing I kept thinking about all weekend was all the fucking dead people.
–Elevator, Madison & 49th
Overheard by: Captain Obvious
Conductor: Good news for riders going local. This train is not going express, as previously announced, but going local, like normal. If there’s such a thing as normal…Questions? Comments? Suggestions? See your conductor, located in the center of the train. Don’t just walk around confused. Ask me! I know! Usually…Just a reminder to turn those frowns upside-down. Smiling burns more calories!
Guy: Giving the finger to the conductor burns calories, too.
–R train
Overheard by: Dawn
Hobo: What the fuck? Why’s the train so crowded? Used ta be between 9 and 5 the train’d be empty. Don’t anybody fucking have a job anymore?
–N train
Hobo: I had to go all over the goddamn world. Canarsie! Staten Island! Jersey City! Timbuktu!
–65th between 2nd & 3rd
Crazy hobo: I have closed my windows. I have pulled my curtains. I have put up my air conditioner…and now you will lock down block 340 like you will lock down every other block in the city of New York, the state of New York, the state of New Jersey, and to some extent Connecticut, but not all of Connecticut.
–4th Street & 2nd Avenue
Overheard by: Squatporpoise
Drunk hobo: I have a lottery ticket. My father played the lottery every week. Must’ve had about a hundred fucking tickets. What if I find out I won and I’m on the subway? No one’s getting away. I’m taking down everyone’s number. We’re going to dinner. Your family too. No cousins.
–N train
Drunk hobo with megaphone: Don’t ride the trains! Those a-rabs are going to blow this thing up! It’s gonna be bloody! Those a-rabs and the black men from north Africa!
–A train
Old hobo: …and there’s a girl in the well. And he got a dog! You seen dat shit?
–34th & 7th
Overheard by: K-Na
Hobo: I ain’t got no money, but I got the honey, just for the women, not the men. And I ain’t no one minute man, ain’t no three minute man. I’m a one-hour man!
–4 train
Overheard by: eb
Girl #1: I just came came back for vacation.
Girl #2: Really? From where?
Girl #1: New Jersey.
Girl #2: What? That’s not a vacation, bitch.
—R train
Woman #1: And what about the vacation?
Woman #2: It was great. But I’m so glad to be back on firma terra cotta.
–42nd & Lexington
Overheard by: Ellen Beckerman
