Top Spies

Our network of spies and eavesdroppers around the five boroughs are always listening. Here are some of our most trustworthy spies, who have contributed 25 or more published submissions to the site. (If you’ve contributed lots of quotes to the site but aren’t yet listed here, then let us know.) See if you can find them on the street. You won’t.

Rachel W. holds the record for being the only master eavesdropper who is also deaf and mute. However, her status as a highly-desired and socially advanced NYU student may potentially provide an Olsen-Twin-related submission.

Susan V

Suze V (Susan Volchok) is a New York writer for whom things overheard (via shameless eavesdropping) are crucial resources… not to mention perfect justification for any/all hours spent away from her desk. Inappropriate listening-in is a skill she’s honed from early childhood.

Rich Mintz

Rich grew up in Los Angeles, before West L.A. and the Upper West Side became mirror images of each other. Now he works for BusyTonight, surrounded by the tourists and other fauna near South Street Seaport.

Originally from Philadelphia, Jess came to her senses and moved to New York. When she graduates Fordham, she will look for a cushy job or a sugar daddy. Aside from spying, Jess just gallavants around the city meeting people.

Kaitlen Exum

Some people like to watch. Kaitlen likes to listen.

Becka Dash is a hard-charging pusher of children’s books (read: public librarian), NYC native (read: born to eavesdrop), and devoted crossword puzzler (read: camouflage for eavesdropping, who may one day achieve her dream of having an all-candy diet.

Kira

Kira does most of her eavesdropping on her regular walk home from her day
job in Midtown. While she has occasionally been known to steal things she’s
overheard for her fiction, she never sins in the other direction.

Matthew K. Johnson

Matthew may look like he’s listening to his iPod, but no music soothes his raging curiosity. His skills as a playwright also make him a master at distinguishing in speech whether you’re using an ellipses…or a dash. He’ll happily share this skill with you – for a small fee.

Ting

Ting is a student in the Stern school of business and he hates it with all his heart and soul (if he has the latter). He was born and raised in Shanghai, which is probably the only city in the world that features more fucked up conversations and more swearing than NYC has to offer.

In 2002, he was sent to NYC from California for a crime he didn’t commit. He escaped from a maximum-security dormitory in Manhattan and fled to the Queens underground. Today, he survives as an eavesdropper. If someone has a secret, if no one else can hear it, and if you can find him, maybe you can hire… Gregorio.

Greg was born with a third ear which makes him the perfect Overheard In New York contributor. This also makes him perfect person to point at and gasp in horror. The two definitely go together quite … perfectly.

Hobo Whisperer

A lifelong Bronxite, Hobo Whisperer has honed his listening skills while riding the subways — paying close attention to the always humorous, sometimes philosophical ranting of NYC’s underground community.

Rose Fox is the result of a genetic experiment to create the perfect writer. Having escaped from the laboratory, she now roams the streets of New York, looking for inspiration in gutters and rainbows.

Duncan is cute, gay, and plays the ukulele.
He’s also a playwright — check it out here.

Special Agent 83189

Special Agent 83189 is an undercover spy for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Collegiate Cutie

Collegiate Cutie was born and raised in Queens. Her mother always taught her never to make eye contact on the train, so she just eavesdrops instead. It makes for a more entertaining commute.

Thorn

Thorn is a first generation New York — American accountant. Because her job is so boring she spends a lot of time amusing herself at the antics of other New Yorkers.

Mallory McMahon

Mallory broke her iPod so she decided to start eavesdropping on people instead of listening to music. She tells herself that this makes her a better playwright, but really, she’s just nosy. Sometimes she’s loud, too, and on more than one occasion has seen Overheard in New York and said, “Oh shit! I said that! That’s me!” …oops.

Trey Givens

Trey Givens is a southern blogger who chased something shiny and wound up in the Big City. In exchange for teaching yankees how to use and pronounce “y’all” he is learning how to swear without being angry about anything.

Office Peon

Office Peon is a native of California who’s putting her Ivy League degree to good use working at an industrial supply company in central Jersey (barf). Having come from a purely non-profit background, she now owns a pair of steel toe shoes, has ridden on a fork lift, and once visited a cardboard box factory. She enjoys fancy restaurants, Broadway theater, and sex education, and plans to quit her job soon in hopes of becoming a gynecologist.