IT TAKES something pretty special to turn a New Yorker’s head, but yesterday, commuters were treated to quite the unusual sight.

They call it the No Pants Subway Ride, and, what started as a prank by a group of seven guys in 2002 has spawned an international sensation. This year, other cities, like Sydney, Berlin and London, also took part.
Here’s how it works.

“The idea behind No Pants is simple: Random passengers board a subway car at separate stops in the middle of winter without pants,” the organisers said on the event site.

“The participants behave as if they do not know each other, and they all wear winter coats, hats, scarfs and gloves. The only unusual thing is their lack of pants.”

More than one thousand participants took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather to startle other “straphangers” (subway passengers, as they call it in New York).

“I’m a no-pant virgin,” declared a grinning Miguel Ramos, a Mexican-born restaurant worker said during his first foray into the “international celebration of silliness”.

While most clothed straphangers wove their way through bare flesh, some were left shocked.

A tall, elegant man — totally clothed — stopped in his tracks as he entered the station.

“I asked the police, ‘What’s going on?’ and he said, ‘It’s no pants day,”’ said Manhattan entrepreneur Mark Francis. “And I said, ‘what?”’

The cop told him it was a “tradition.”

What do you think of No Pants Day? Would you do it? Does this kind of thing enrich society or is it a bit over the top? Let us know in the comments section below!