In New York City, lines aren’t a deterrent–they’re a personality trait. If there’s a viral pastry, a buzzy pop-up, or a new restaurant with even a whisper of hype, you can bet there’s already a line wrapped around the block…and yes, people will wait in it.
But one genius New Yorker just made the ultimate power move: creating an online tool that tracks live wait times at the city’s most buzzworthy lines, so you can decide if that “quick stop” is actually worth a two-hour commitment…or if your dignity is better spent elsewhere.
Dubbed “damnlines,” the tool was created by engineer Lucas Gordon. We’ll spare you the super technical breakdown (it’s basically another language to us), but the concept is pretty straightforward: tenants across NYC install cameras outside their apartments to monitor nearby lines in real time.
Those cameras track how many people are waiting, how fast the line is moving, and estimate how long you’d be standing there if you joined right now. In other words, it’s the insider intel every New Yorker wishes they had before committing to a line that may–or may not–be worth the hype.
Right now, the site is tracking a handful of famously long lines, including:
- Breakfast by Salt’s Cure
- John’s of Bleecker Street
- L’Industrie Pizzeria (West Village)
- Salt Hank’s
Through the website, New Yorkers can also volunteer to host a camera, vote on which spots should be added next, and even request new locations–because if there’s one thing this city will always have, it’s more lines.
Savvy New Yorkers have even made a business out of it, becoming professional line sitters and getting paid to hold people’s spots in line.
Gordon shared the project on Twitter, where it quickly took off–because, as the site perfectly puts it, “no one likes waiting in a damn line.” Users flooded in with reactions like “This is really sick,” “would 100% pay for this lol,” and “This is awesome.”
That said, Gordon admits the project isn’t exactly sustainable in its current form–so if you’ve got ideas, he’s listening. In the meantime, consider this your sign to check the line before you leave the house.
