You never know what to expect in New York City. Sometimes, you even get a pleasant surprise, like I did on the subway — yes, on the subway — on New Year’s Eve.

I was taking the No. 1 train downtown from the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on West 112th Street and Amsterdam Avenue at about 8:30 p.m.

At the 103rd Street stop, a group of cute, well-dressed boys and girls got on. They were about 8 years old.

I could see in the distance that they were showing the contents of a looseleaf folder to people, most of whom were shooing them away, as is the tradition in subway cars.

A passenger near me gave one of the boys a dollar. They chatted, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

The boy then walked right past me. I thought I had been passed over until a little girl in a brightly colored winter jacket stopped in front of me.

So I got a dollar out and, as I always do, I asked what cause she was collecting for. But she was showing me drawings she had created, so I really didn’t understand.

“It’s a business,” she replied. I still didn’t get what she meant, but I gave her the buck anyway.

The folder was still open when she said, “Which one do you want?”

Ah! I finally got it. She and the others were selling their artwork. The guy next to me had chosen not to take a drawing, he later told me, because he told the boy that he didn’t have any place to put it.

Neither did I. But I didn’t want to insult my little business kid, so I took a purple picture of a heart and she thanked me.

Since it’s the New Year, I don’t want to even think that anyone was exploiting these kids. Or that they were pulling some kind of scam.

I’d like to think that some mother or father — and I’m sure there was one somewhere in the subway car — was trying to teach these kids an urban brand of entrepreneurship.

I had to fold the little girl’s picture, but I waited until she and the others had moved into another car.

The drawing by little Jannah is now on my refrigerator with the rest of my valuable art collection.