The driver's lounge at your garage turns into the scene of belligerent feuds between our browbeating Russian dispatcher and a handful of west African drivers, over adjustments made in the daily lease rate and early bird special, as well as whether he's fibbing about the commission having threatened him with summonses for allowing us to surpass the ( Read more... )

Peruano father and son duo stand by their '84 Toyota van wagon, holding cables up high to an audience of frenzied autoists on 8 Avenue. You pull right in to give them a jump but nothing works. They coyly inquire a ride to Cobble Hill, if their 150 pound floor finishing machine fits in the trunk. The three of us barely manage. Meanwhile the radio ( Read more... )

1. An upbeat elder double date out of eastern Washington state ask to go to the West Village from SoHo ( Read more... )

Juxtapositions of ethnicities that sit in the taxicab on a daily basis amaze me. And even more befuddling is when months go by without a single Filipino passenger, and then four pop up within a week. Mind you that 62,058 of them live in NYC. One of them was an adorably diminutive, yet thoroughly sagacious gastroenterologist on his way to BIMC. The ( Read more... )

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Good Friday at four in the a.m.. A plastered monomaniac hails my orange yellow streaks to a halt on the cadaverous streets of Nolita. He wants to go home (Pattery Bark City) and then requires hands on assistance with touch screen and visa swipe. I hand him his receipt and help him out of the cab. He says "I love you man" and hugs me insalubriously ( Read more... )

Eleven degrees and atramental at six am. Taxi murmurs motionless at a red. I gaze at the 192 flagless poles of the UN headquarters. A discreet corporate couple abruptly pop open the back door and shove their shivering bodies into my clement cacoon of a cab. "61st Street, the L.A. sports club please, driver." Gyms are good places to thaw out your ( Read more... )

At the end of a grueling midmorning crosstown ride, don't make the cabdriver proceed into your block if it's only three doorways down from the corner where another passenger awaits service, and you have no heavy cargo to unload. This can make an enormous difference in the cabbie's daily total. It's all about the turnover rate. Never mind the tip ( Read more... )

Before I go into tales of cabdriving, I'd like to invite my dearest New Yorkers on a bicycle adventure this Saturday (4th). It's my only day off. A friend and I plan to pedal through Flushing Meadows Park, stop by the Queens art museum , ride over the GW/Bayonne bridges for great views of NYC from NJ, and board the SI ferry back into town. I have ( Read more... )

I must start keeping tape and scissors in the glove box from now on, because I love the idea someone had of posting an article on the wall at the JFK taxi hold that's relevant to cabdrivers, and watching them crowd around in a half circle and hullabaloo over its implications. The one hanging up this week was about undercover TLC enforcers hailing ( Read more... )