White chick: Hey! Enough with the pushing already!
Indian woman: No! No! No! This is not your living room. This is rush hour–so I pooosh and pooosh!
–Penn Station
Overheard by: Mary Beth Hanlon
White chick: Hey! Enough with the pushing already!
Indian woman: No! No! No! This is not your living room. This is rush hour–so I pooosh and pooosh!
–Penn Station
Overheard by: Mary Beth Hanlon
Drunk college kid: I had to read Grapes of Wrath. Which, by the way, has no grapes! Pissed me off!
–53rd & 7th
20-Something chick: Non fiction? That’s true stuff right?
–Barnes & Noble, 54th between 3rd & Park
Older sister, giving younger brother a book entitled Living in Sin: Here, this is all about you.
–Barnes & Noble, Union Square
Guy, to friend reading Dostoevsky’s The Idiot: Hey, is that your autobiography?
–Times Square
Overheard by: John
Ghetto white dude: Yo, that nigga is like Shakespeare. Mad gangsta.
–9th St & 4th Ave, Brooklyn
Overheard by: shannon ramlochan
Guy: You can’t talk to me for half an hour about Chaucer and then tell me you have a boyfriend.
–St Mark’s & 3rd
Black guy #1, noticing white guy walking down the street: Aw, man!
Black guy #2: There goes the neighborhood.
White guy: This is the cheapest rent in the city. You better believe my people are going to start moving here.
–Franklin Ave, Brooklyn
Dental hygienist: What is your dissertation going to be on?
Grad student: The cultural barriers to health care for Mexican-born migrant farm workers.
Dental hygienist: How about the cultural barriers to health care for German-American dental hygienists with $2,500 deductables, instead?
–Hunter College
Daughter: One of my clients who is 6 years old can break dance. Like literally do handstands and drop down on his head and spin around. It’s pretty cool.
Father: Is he black?
Daughter: Half black, half white, but he looks like he is white.
Father: Oh, so he’s lightly dipped?
–5th Ave
Overheard by: Ali
Law student #1: So where you going after the test?
Law student #2: I’m going to East Africa for 2 months. Last time I was there, they made me an honorary Maori tribesman.
Law student #1: Wow, you’ve gotta be the first gay, white honorary Maori tribesman ever.
Law student #2: Yeah, or at least one of the first 5.
–Bar exam line, Javits Center
Overheard by: AP
Guy: Hey! Where’s my Sudanese pussy from Chinatown?
–14th & University
Guy on cell: I’ll meet you at the corner by the store with Chinese writing…Hey, wait a minute. All the fucking signs around here have Chinese writing.
–Walker & Lafayette
Overheard by: Wolf
Guy on cell: So, if this is true, then Dracula’s native language would be Hungarian rather than Romanian. And I think that is important for my research.
–Anthology Film Archives, 2nd St & 2nd Ave
Overheard by: nosy cinephile
Teen girl: This bag is mad Aztec.
–13th & University
Co-Worker: So, did she mention anything about Mexicans?
–Office, W 36th St
Overheard by: Evan
Well-Traveled girl: Mexico is not a Third-World country. JFK is.
–Tea Lounge, Park Slope
Small child: Mommy, look! You can tell he’s Mexican by his eyes!
–Bodies exhibit, South Street Seaport
White girl, to Asian girl: So wait, is he just not Japanese or not interested?
–Walgreens, Union Square
Overheard by: Goldie
Businesswoman: Well you can’t kill a Vietnamese man because that would just cost too much.
–I Trulli restaurant, E 27th St
Hobo: You’re not Polish; you just think you’re Polish!
–Tompkins Square Park
Voice over intercom: Will the foreign exchange student please come to the cashier.
–Century 21
Sassy chick: I can’t believe she’s moving to fucking Cambodia to live with a fucking cricket-hunter she’s only known for two months!
–TGI Friday’s, 52nd & 7th
Overheard by: Shaina
Tall tourist: Hey, they just said Union Square; is that our stop?
Big-Haired tourist: Our stop is 5th Street.
Conductor: The next stop will be 8th Street.
Doe-Eyed tourist: Is that our stop?
Big-Haired tourist: Our stop is 5th Street.
New Yorker #1: There isn’t a stop for 5th Street.
Big-Haired tourist: Then how do we get to Central Park?
New Yorker #2: You should get off and go the other way– 5th Avenue.
New Yorker #3, as doors open at 8th Street: But wait until Canal. Otherwise you’ll have to pay the 2 bucks to get back on the train.
Big-Haired tourist wanders off the train without his tourist counterparts.
Doe-Eyed tourist, as the doors are closing: Wait. Why did he get off?
Tall tourist, to doors: Open up.
New Yorker #2, as the train pulls away: Do you have cell phones?
Tall tourist: No, ma’am.
New Yorker #4: Well, at least his hair looked good.
–Downtown R train
Overheard by: good lord, the tourists are in season
White girl: Man, I’m sweating like a Jew in the Holocaust!
White guy: Yeah, and I’m sweating like a nigga on a rape charge.
–G train
Overheard by: hot and sweaty
Drunk hobo: You are so fucking beautiful. I am in love with you. Please let me give you a hug.
Girl #1: Please, no.
Drunk hobo: Why all you white girls hate on black people? We not all that bad.
Girl #2: It’s not because you’re black. It’s because you’re covered with open sores and blisters.
–Manhattan bound L train
Overheard by: Far
