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 deserve to be refused if you want to go to Brooklyn at that time! But, generally speaking, your driver will take you anywhere in the city you want to go. Again, this is an amazing convenience, if you think about it.
So we have here a system of thousands of taxis, all in competition with each other, cruising the streets and constantly looking for their next customer – anyone with his hand in the air. (Yes, I have stopped for people who were actually looking at their watches, pointing at buildings, or waving goodbye to their friends. And I have stopped not once, but twice, for a statue of a man hailing a cab on East 47th Street!)
The passengers
Anyway, who are all these people with their hands in the air? What kinds of people get into taxicabs in New York City? There are two broad categories: visitors and residents.
Who are the visitors? Well, maybe it’s not everyone, but it seems like it is. New York has been called the Capital of the World, the City That Never Sleeps, Gotham, the Big Apple and other nicknames. As already mentioned, I call it the Monster City of the World. But whatever you want to call it, it is certainly a place where people from all over the planet converge. Sometimes I imagine that everyone in the world is standing in line in a single file. And then, one by one, they all get into my cab.
The variety is infinite. I am convinced that every conceivable type of person from every conceivable place is well represented in this city. From wide-eyed teenagers from Tennessee here on a school trip to middle-aged Barry Manilow groupies from England following the singer all around the country, or to an old couple from San Diego returning to the city after a forty-year absence – they all get into my cab. People from Turkey, people from Brazil; people from Estonia, people from Taiwan; I actually once had a passenger from Liechtenstein, a country in Europe that’s so small it would fit into the trunk of my cab!
Most passengers, however (about eighty percent by my own estimate), are people who live in or close to the city. They can be broken down into seven main groups:
1. The Workerbees – these are the folks who either commute to and from the suburbs, live above 96th Street in Manhattan, or reside in the neighborhoods of the outer boroughs (Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island). I define ‘neighborhood’ as a place where families live and kids can be seen playing with other kids without supervision. Due to the extremely high price of real estate, with the exception of the Lower East Side, there are basically no neighborhoods left in Manhattan south of 96th Street. The Workerbees I get in my cab are usually either en route to the boroughs or coming from or going to the train and bus stations of Manhattan.
2. The American Aristocracy – these are the people on the upper end of the food chain who were born into wealth and privilege. They live in specific places: 5th Avenue and Park Avenue between 60th and 96th Streets. Here we find ‘high society’ – prep schools, trust funds, debutante balls, charity events and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And, yes, as a rule they are no better than average tippers.
3. The Comfortables – this group consists of those who are doing quite well, thank you, and can actually afford to live in Manhattan. They may have been called ‘Yuppies’ (Young Urban Professionals) at one time, but the truth is most of them aren’t that young anymore. But urban and professional they certainly are. They can be found anywhere in Manhattan, but are most often in Midtown, the Upper West Side, Tribeca and Soho, with some hearty pioneers buying up brownstones in Brooklyn and Harlem.
4. The Gonnabees – it’s been written that ‘big dreams come to New York, small dreams stay home’. More than anywhere else in America, New York is the place where ambitious people come to make their mark. These are the Gonnabees. A Wannabee is someone with a small dream who stays home; a Gonnabee takes the leap and arrives in New York City come hell or high rentals. Most Gonnabees are in their twenties. The artistic ones can be found in the East Village, Alphabet City, the Lower East Side, and, currently, extending over the borders of Manhattan into the Williamsburg and Greenpoint sections of Brooklyn. The rest of the Gonnabees are pursuing careers in business and are sharing apartments in the Upper East Side or Midtown.
5. The Unmoveables – they can’t afford to live in Manhattan, but they’re too hooked to ever leave. These are the Gonnabees who never made it to the Comfortables. They range in age from thirty-five to ninety and could be anywhere in Manhattan, probably in a rent-stabilized apartment.
6. The Flying Cosmopolitans – wealthy, successful and smart, these are people from other countries or other parts of the United States who own apartments in New York but are here only occasionally. They could be living anywhere in Manhattan, but never in the boroughs. In fact, most of them have probably never even been to the boroughs except to pass through Queens on their way to the airport.
7. The Flying Workerbees – these people are working-class nomads from other places who are toiling in New York for extended periods of time and, in the case of Americans, may even commute back home on the weekends. They are either in Midtown or not far from Midtown. Both the Flying Workerbees and the Flying Cosmopolitans aren’t really residents and aren’t exactly visitors either. They fall in the middle. But there are enough of them in taxicabs to be recognizable as distinct types of passengers.
The rides
So these are the kinds of people who get into taxis in New York City (along with an occasional dog). And what about the ride itself? What happens during a ride in a taxicab? There are three possibilities.
The first: nothing. The driver drives and the passenger looks out the window or watches the damned television which the city has mandated to be in the rear compartment of every yellow cab. The second: the driver is a fly on the wall. He finds himself the sudden observer of a scene in the passengers’ lives. Middle-aged siblings are discussing their mother’s medical condition and the driver is just along for the ride. Literally. Or two movie stars (Sean Penn and Dennis Hopper) hop in and talk to each other about – what else? – old movies.
And then there is the third possibility… a conversation takes place. And this is where it gets interesting.
Cab drivers and their passengers find themselves in a unique human situation. It’s a business relationship but, like barbers and bartenders, it’s a relationship that shares a close space for a limited length of time. Due to these factors the shell that divides strangers is easily shattered by the act of communication, and the potential for just about any kind of conversation exists.
Politics, sports, what’s in the news today – these are common grounds for discussion, as well as the endless spectacle of whatever’s passing by on the street. Of course, you never know where a conversation may lead you. Sometimes it may take you into something that might be called an ‘adventure’. Like the summer day in 1984 when I picked up a man on 56th Street who was wearing white shorts and holding half a dozen tennis racquets in his arms. He turned out to be Martina Navratilova’s coach and was headed out to Douglaston in Queens for a practice session. Thirty minutes later I am standing on a tennis court with one of Martina’s racquets in my hand, trying to return the serve of a tennis pro. And Martina herself sits patiently watching as her coach has some fun with me.
Other times a conversation may flow so easily that the passenger and the driver find themselves talking to each other as if they were the closest of friends. I remember once bringing an elderly man, traveling alone, from LaGuardia Airport to Manhattan. There was a nice rapport between us, and this man told me about his life. He was