"New York Minute" revolves around a day in the life of two very different sisters. Jane Ryan is an uptight, overachiever who is scheduled to deliver a speech that could determine an Oxford University scholarship. A free spirit drummer and sometime student, Roxy Ryan plans to skip school and attend a Manhattan rock concert, where she hopes to distribute her groups demo CD. Hot on her heels is Max Lomax (doing a rehash of his detective role in "Splash"), a truancy officer intent on finally nailing Roxy and earning reinstatement on the NY police force. All of these plans go awry when they become entangled in some bizarre movie/music-pirating scheme, after a microchip falls into Roxys purse and Ashleys day planner is lost. Chased all over the city by Bennie Bang, son of the Chinese underworld ringleader, the duo finds themselves in sewers, hotel rooms, and finally at Columbia University...

A New York minute is an informal term used to mean a very short period of time. The term refers to the common perception that the people in New York City are hurried and impatient.

Johnny Carson once described a New York Minute as being the time it takes "From the (traffic) lights to turn green, till the guy behind you starts honking his horn". During the late 1980s crime wave, David Letterman defined a New York Minute as the length of time it took to be mugged in New York City.