Why I love working/living in the city

statler

statler

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As I was walking through downtown crossing at lunch time there was a gentlemen screeching about praising the Lord and going to hell and what not.
Flanking him, handing out fliers and coupons for local merchants, were two gentleman; one was dressed as a giant chicken, the other dressed as a giant pair of men's tighty whiteys.
It was a beautiful scene, I only wish I had a camera.

Post your 'only in the city stories' here.
 
well, if we are talking about cities outside of Boston, I will do more than post stories, I can take a ten minute stroll down congress street, camera in hand, and instantly win the most unbelievable photos award.

Portland has a guy that dresses uplike robin hood that walks around with a staff in hand all around town. also has a guy that takes his girlfriend out for walks on a leash and ties her up to a post when he goes into local businesses. or maybe its the other way around...i forget.

Another favorite passtime in any city is watching the people from all over the world try to communicate with eachother. someone just out of africa cant exactly order a dunk'n donuts coffee from the ukranian cashier with little difficulty, even if both are speaking english.
 
I love all the colorful characters that I see day in day out. For instance, on my walk back home from the library (at Copley Square) there was a homeless guy using a car's side window as a mirror, singing nearly at the top of his lungs, "I've got sunshiiiiiiieeiiiiiiine, on a clooouuwdy day," and all I could do was walk for the next half a block or so with a big-ass grin on my face, internally cracking up at what I just witnessed. Stuff like that is simply amazing.

Not to mention the fact that I live 5 blocks away from one of the greatest libraries in the world, AND that to get to it I must walk past the construction site of the Mandarin hotel, which is the first large-scale project I've watched go up from day one (major sentimental value there). It's just a win-win all around.
 
I saw a man at the Public Garden in an electric wheelchair trying to launch a kite attached to the line on a fishing rod with an adorable small dog leashed to the chair.
 
How many people are familiar with "Tricycle Guy"? :) I've seen him around for years! I saw him again crossing the bridge in the Public Garden a couple of weeks ago.
 
...

...at BU we used to call that guy "Commonwealth Avenue Man"
 
DowntownDave said:
How many people are familiar with "Tricycle Guy"? :) I've seen him around for years! I saw him again crossing the bridge in the Public Garden a couple of weeks ago.
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Yeah but that guy isn't cool. He's a crack addict.
 
I've been walking on boylston and as i was passing Starbucks, a homeless guy approached me and said "Give me money for the hell of it because I've run out of excuses!!!" i walked away laughing, but also feeling bad because it was sad at the same time.
 
I'm pretty sure tricycle guy's not a crack addict at the moment. He's clearly disabled, maybe from some crack-related incident. He's been around and tricycling for a hell of a long time for someone who's addicted to crack.
 
awood91 said:
I've been walking on boylston and as i was passing Starbucks, a homeless guy approached me and said "Give me money for the hell of it because I've run out of excuses!!!" i walked away laughing, but also feeling bad because it was sad at the same time.
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That guy has been in that spot with the same line for a few years at least... :)
 
I've been asked a few times by the same homeless guy thats usually around City Hall if I "wanted to kick his ass for a buck." One of those funny/sad moments. And how could we forget Spare Change Guy who's usually heard from about a block away somewhere between Bowdoin Square and Park Street? Always makes my day seem more normal when his gruff and annoyed voice grates my brain like parmesan cheese.

Otherwise, my latest moment of non-homeless urban humor happened in the Public Garden under a willow where I was reading a text for class during a break in my double shift when I heard a loud "SMACK." A looked up an saw a very surprised squirrel, which had fallen fromt the tree and made the noise on the pavement, clamor to its feet and run back to the tree in shame. Some out-of-towners and I laughed for almost 10 minutes afterward. Its funny how falling squirrels can break down barriers.
 
TheBostonian said:
I saw a man at the Public Garden in an electric wheelchair trying to launch a kite attached to the line on a fishing rod with an adorable small dog leashed to the chair.
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That man is out there quite a bit. He invites others to take over reigns of the kite once it's up and flying. Nice guy.
 
Don't forget about Boston's other crazy cast of characters like:
sideways bike guy, the nanananana viking midget bike guy, the psychic pirate mind reader guy, the Mass Ave. one arm push-up man, the you're going to hell sandwich sign/flyer guy, the common town crier, accordion man, and mister REPENT!
 
Lurker said:
Don't forget about Boston's other crazy cast of characters like:
sideways bike guy...
Click to expand...
In August of 2004, while walking down Unter-den-Linden in Berlin with a German friend, he whizzed by me on his sideways bike. I had told Patrick (my German friend) about some of the characters I regularly see around Boston a couple of nights before, and a few days later as if to prove my story, we saw him. I'll be there again in a few weeks, maybe I'll see the change guy ("Haben sie irgendeine Ersatz?nderung?")...
I emailed the sideways bike guy asking if it was him I saw (who on a few occasions rode near or behind on my own bike) after I got back and he responded yes, that he was on a European tour promoting his bike.
 
Another colorful character, DJ Nitetrain made the Globe!! And there's 3 videos of him on Youtube..!


Nitetrain's all Aboard the Groove

By Adam Gaffin, Globe Correspondent | November 26, 2006

In the pantheon of Boston characters, DJ Nitetrain has a hallowed position. For the past several years, he's given T riders "performances" as he makes like a club DJ -- often to a beat only he can hear, but sometimes to disco played on what sounds like the world's cheapest cassette recorder.

Evan Cale of the Fenway reports on his Life Is Sweet in the Fenway blog that he recently caught DJ Nitetrain on the Red Line out of Charles/MGH:

"It was so crowded in the train that I could not see where it was coming from, but then I noticed a gentleman with headphones, it was DJ Nitetrain (as far as I could tell from the name taped to the headphones). He was clad in buttons pronouncing his support for gays and lesbians, and he had what I think was a teddy bear strapped to his backpack.

"I loved it (not the music, but the scene he made). He was so into his work, counting out beats and throwing in a dance move here and there (remember to consider the music that was playing).

"He even bid everyone a good weekend as they stepped off the train at each stop."

An anonymous woman recently posted an ode to him on Boston Craigslist after watching him on a Green Line B trolley:

"You made my night and most others on that train. You're a good dancer and know how to rock the beats."
 
I thought he was ours!! At Northeastern, he's the "Huntington Ave Tricycle Guy"

WOOOOOO, WOOOOOO, WOOOOOO
 
No, DJ Nitetrain is someone different from the tricycle guy. DJ must walk because how else would he be able to keep up his dancing at all times?
 
I saw an old African American woman, maybe in her 50s or 60s wearing a tight red leather or pleather outfit with long blond weave that went down to her butt walking down mass ave..
 
I saw an African-American woman of the same age reading Penthouse Letters 7 on the bus.
 
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