The 50 grossest things in NYC

We’re sure you know that there are a million gross things about living in NYC, and normally, on a day-to-day basis, we just suck it up and deal with it because we live in the city that’s better than every other city in the world at just about everything else. Today, though, we don't feel like sucking it up -- we feel like complaining, so we're gonna do that instead. Here are 50 of the grossest everyday things in NYC:

1. Poop smeared on the subway station wall
How did that even get there?????

2. Mystery liquids that fall on your head
Do yourself a favor and just assume it’s air conditioner condensation.

3. Public spitting
It’s one thing if you take the care to make sure no one’s around, and then inconspicuously hock one, but when someone serves it up right in front of you, that’s just not ok.

4. Snow garbage
AKA when it snows so much that it becomes impossible for the garbage men to clear your building's garbage and it accumulates exponentially.

5. The film that seems to peel off your body during especially hot summers
You know, when you can rub your fingers together and it creates dark gunk.

6. The warm pee smell...
... that hits you at almost every moment in a warm summer month.

7. A particularly mountainous and leaking trash pile
Normal trash piles aren’t really worth getting worked up over.

8. Mysterious subway seat stains
You really want to sit but can't decide: is that a spilled Snapple, or just, y'know, blood?

9. Mysterious curly hairs on the subway seats
Depending on how tired you are, brushing it off the seat is enough. Just don’t think about it too much.

10. Soot, dust, and buildup...
... that gets stuck in your screen and window sill when you live near any major thoroughfare.

Grossest things in NYC
Flickr/ Eden Pictures

11. Bathrooms in bars...
... that are either too cool or too self-consciously divey to give a crap -- in most ways we respect it, but still.

12. Visible back sweat
Yours or the guy pressed up against you on the subway. Even worse if you just can’t tell whose.

13. Stepping in dog crap
This is a problem in every city, but we walk more.

14. The a-hole pissing, puking, or being generally abhorrent in public
Don’t be this a-hole, and if you must, at least save it for a house party or your college reunion.

15. The Gowanus Canal
We hear it’s getting better! But we also hear it killed a dolphin.

16. Sidewalk condoms
Equally gross, but less understandable, than rooftop condoms.

17. Inadvertently wandering into an open-air fish market
You’ll definitely pick up the pace.

18. Sunday morning sidewalk puke
Way worse than the stomped-on pizzas.

19. Sunday morning sidewalk puke with identifiable foodstuffs
Way worse if it contains stomped-on pizza.

20. The area behind your IKEA dresser
You only found out just how gross it was when you moved three years later. You still never clean behind your new dresser.

Grossest things in NYC
Flickr/m01229

21. Cockroaches
Blame Jerry O'Connell.

22. Cockroaches in the shower
It’s creepy how they just sit there waiting for you in the morning.

23. Unisex bathrooms...
... if you’re a girl! Sorry girls.

24. Port Authority Bus Terminal
Except for the oddly nice bowling alley.

25. Rex Ryan’s foot fetish
Unless you’re into that kind of thing, then this is... awesome? No, no.

26. The produce in your crisper
You bought it a few months ago because you thought, "I need to cook more", then you just ordered Seamless every night anyway.

27. Wearing sandals...
... anywhere outside your apartment.

28. Bedbugs on the subway, especially those wood benches
One more reason to be stressed out by the morning commute.

29. Bedbugs anywhere, really
Fact: they will ruin your life.

30. Rats...
... and rat fights, and rat kings, and any other rats.

Grossest things in NYC
Flickr/Eric Skiff

31. When a pigeon gets on the subway
This could also go for the rats above too.

32. When somebody sneezes on the subway...
... and doesn’t cover their mouth.

33. When somebody sneezes on the subway...
... and DOES cover their mouth, but then puts their hand right back on the pole.

34. Street meat
Just kidding! Street meat is the goddamn best.

35. ATM keyboards
There are probably 100,000 in the city and nobody has ever cleaned one of these.

36. Physical contact with the Naked Cowboy
Even though he’s a treasured personality.

37. Wet underwear that is definitely not yours
Specifically when it’s in a laundry machine you very much need to use.

38. Unidentifiable running liquid on the subway floor
It will make your shoes sticky for the rest of the week.

39. A payphone
If for some reason you have to actually use it to make a call instead of just using it as a place to light a cigarette.

40. Your roommate
Probably. Definitely.

Grossest things in NYC
Flickr/Charles16e

41. LaGuardia
We can (kinda) help.

42. Curbmattresses
There is definitely something wrong. Most likely #29.

43. A really nice piece of furniture on the side of the street
This is obviously a trap.

44. The East River
And anyone who goes in it like they’re at the beach. We’ve seen it happen!

45. The day after it snows
Winter wonderland to abominable slush-tundra in 6hrs flat.

46. Humidity on the subway...
... when it rains and the windows get all fogged.

47. Eating on the subway
Unless it's these things.

48. Those smells that are unidentifiable...
... but when you get a waft they immediately bring you back to that sticky street where you first smelled them.

49. Deodorant stains on clothes...
... that you’re about to try on at a store.

50. Fry grease
We know it was you, "restaurant .5 blocks from where it’s dumped".


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Andrew Zimmer is Thrillist's NYC Editor, and he can't really explain it, but sometimes when something gross happens to him in NYC it makes him just a little happy. Follow him on Twitter.