No Pants Subway Ride: What to know and how to get involved

The No Pants Subway Ride is back for 2019. Now is the time to show off your skivvies. Photo Credit: NYC Parks

Legs bare, don’t care.

More than 1,000 straphangers are stripping down to their skivvies on Sunday for this year’s No Pants Subway Ride — Improv Everywhere’s annual happening.

The idea is simple: Ditch your pants (but, please, keep your underwear) and hop on a train like it’s just another commute through the city.

Improv Everywhere asks participants not to explain what’s going on to those who don’t know — just get on the train and act as if it’s business as usual.

Seven guys in New York City started this prank in 2002 and it has since spread to 60 cities around the world.

How you can take part:

When: 3-5 p.m. Jan. 13

Wear: Normal clothes (jacket, hat, gloves, shoes, etc.), your skivvies (fun undies are OK) and a straight face.

Don’t wear: A thong or anything that might offend people.

Bring: A MetroCard and a bag or backpack to stash your pants in.

Where: There are six meeting points spread across Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, each with its own route. They are:

Queens – Hoyt Playground in Astoria

Brooklyn – Old Stone House in Park Slope, Maria Hernandez Park in Bushwick

Manhattan – Foley Square downtown, Great Hill in Central Park and Sarah Roosevelt Park on the Lower East Side

What’s next: Participants at the meeting points are organized into groups and assigned specific train cars and stops to get off at. Once your group splits up, act like you don’t know them and take a seat. Then, as soon as the door shuts at the stop before your stop, stand up, take off your pants and put them in your bag.

If anyone asks what you’re doing, just say something like “my pants were getting uncomfortable,” improveverywhere.com says.

Get on the next train as if you were actually still wearing pants (nothing to see here, folks). The train routes will all end at Union Square.

Hold off on taking selfies in your undies — the point is to keep a straight face as if nothing is off.