Confessions of a New York Taxi Driver

Eugene Salomon

There are certain rides in which the rapport between passenger and driver is so great that the only way to bring the conversation to a proper conclusion is a handshake. I dedicate this book to every passenger who ever shook my hand at the end of the ride. Except the drunks. That doesn’t count.

And to Harry Gongola, Doctor of Chiropractic, former NYC taxi driver and my very first passenger.

Dedication

Introduction: A Conversation With the Human Race

1 The Wildest Ride

2 Big City Crime

3 Changes

4 Celebrities

5 Extreme behavior

6 Fare Beaters

7 Means of Exchange

8 Hustlers, Hustlers, Hustlers

9 Pedestrians

10 Road Rage

11 Karma versus Coincidence

12 The Animals of Manhattan

13 In a Rush

14 The Traffic Jam Hall of Fame

15 Solids, Liquids and Gases

16 ‘Taxi!’

17 At Journey’s End

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Copright

A man jumped into my cab one night in April, 2008, at the corner of 5^>th Avenue and 57^>th Street. He was a forty-something businessman type, an Inquisitario (a passenger who asks a lot of questions) as it turned out, en route to Grand Central Station.

I could see he was a bit disoriented as he settled into the back seat, but this is not unusual in New York. Certain things must be confronted by a passenger as he enters a yellow cab in this city. Things like: how much will this ride cost? Do I have enough cash or will I have to use a credit card? Hey, what in hell is the source of that odor? And, since English is usually a cabbie’s second language, does the driver actually understand a word I’m saying?

So it took him a few moments before it dawned on him. Leaning forward in his seat, he studied me carefully.

‘Say,’ he blurted out, ‘you’re an… American!’

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘but you know I charge extra for that.’

He ignored the joke.

‘You’re the first American driver I’ve had in… three years!’

‘Better play the lottery tonight.’

‘Really!’

I know how monkeys feel when people are staring at them in the zoo. There are indeed very few American taxi drivers in New York City. My passenger’s eyes moved from the back of my head to my hack license.

‘Eugene Salomon,’ he said, not realizing in his excitement that I already knew my own name.

‘That’s me.’

‘Tell me something, Mr Salomon… how long have you been driving a cab?’

‘You don’t have a heart condition or anything, do you?’

‘No.’

‘Well, then, I’ll tell you… I have been driving a cab since… (drum roll, please)… 1977.’

There was a short pause as this information was processed, and then the expected response: ‘Oh my God!’ This is said in the same combination of horror and amazement people have when they see someone being hit by a car. I take it in my stride.

‘Wow,’ my passenger said, ‘you must have some stories!’

‘Buddy,’ I say in a well-rehearsed reply, ‘I have more stories than the Empire State Building…’

And I do.

If you make driving a cab in New York City your career you will get no pension, no paid vacations, no overtime and no health benefits. But you will get a collection of stories. It’s inevitable. It comes with the job.

Why is this so? Let’s take a minute to examine what taxi driving in this, the Monster City of the World, is all about. Especially if you’re not a New Yorker (yet), a review of the basics is in order.

We are all familiar with the image of a street in New York that is filled to the brim with yellow taxicabs. It’s a part of the landscape here. How many taxis are there? The answer is 13,237, a quantity that is determined by the city government. Why so many? (Or so few, if you’ve been standing in the rain for half an hour trying to get one?) Well, Manhattan, the borough where the great majority of these cabs can be found, is an island that is thirteen miles in length and two miles in width. One and a half million people live on this island and almost none of them own a car – there’s no room for cars! So for many New Yorkers a taxi is a daily means of getting around town. Add to that the million tourists who are here every day and the more than a million commuters who are also here every day and you get an idea of why taxicabs are so important to life in the city.

In New York you can walk out into the street, wave your hand in the air (known as a ‘hail’), and before you can whistle ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, a big yellow taxi will zip up to you and stop, making itself available for your grand entrance. Your carriage awaits you, sir! Or madam.

Consider how marvelous this is. What convenience! In most places you must call on the phone for a taxi and wait for that taxi to arrive, if it arrives at all. But the population of Manhattan is so dense that it makes the street-hail system workable. Hand goes up, taxi arrives. Amazing!

And the driver of that taxi is required by law to take you anywhere in the city you want to go. He cannot legally refuse you. Of course, it is an imperfect world and if you want to go to Brooklyn in the middle of the evening rush hour, you may be refused every once in a while. In fact, you