NYU STUDENT PROJECT

A call to NYC cabbies who like to share their lives with others: get in touch! Oral Histories of New York City Taxi Drivers (By Margaret Fraser + Samantha Gibson) http://aphdigital.org/research/

Taxicabs undoubtedly constitute one of the most enduring symbols of New York City and we would argue that, like the image of the yellow cab, the city’s cab drivers also represent a unique and valuable facet of the New York City experience. Over the next nine months, we will research, plan, and create a project in which we will record and preserve oral histories of New York City taxi drivers. In the course of this process, we will create a research-based funding and institutional partnership proposal and, ultimately, a website through which we will foster dynamic and accessible public engagement with our oral history collection. As such, our project will constitute a bridge between oral history, digital history, and grassroots documentation of New York City.

Through full length oral history interviews with a diverse body of taxi drivers, we hope to capture some of the ways in which race, nationality, gender, class, and religion shape the cab driver’s experience. We anticipate that our oral histories may also reflect such pressing concerns as immigration processes, labor issues, and the intricacies of the taxi industry. Thus, we are at once interested in the individual life histories of our subjects as well as in the unique perspectives that cab drivers may shed on the landscape, character and people of New York City.

As we are fully aware that an institutional affiliation would bolster the credibility and sustainability of our project, we have decided to propose our project to three different institutional partners: Brooklyn Historical Society, City Lore, and NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. We are confident that we can design our project to align with the missions and institutional values of each of these institutions without losing our focus on the lives and personal narratives of our interviewees. As we craft alternate interpretive angles for our final project, we will reach out to a range of advisers, including oral historians, labor organizers, public historians, and archivists in order to create a project that is as valuable to our audience as possible.

BTW: PHOTO ABOVE I FOUND THROUGH A FASCINATING NUMEROLOGICAL ARTICLE RELATING TO TAXICABS, WHICH GOT THE PHOTO FROM WIKI: "taxicab".

ELECTRO AUTOSTOP

Back in 2005, my friend Elizabeth Dwoskin was interning for the Utne magazine. She published an article about hitchhikers who share their travels on the internet. I was one of the people she interviewed for the story.

real life cartogram radio robot dance

Photo Credit: Marilynn K. Yee/ The New York Times

Ever since I was little my geographic imagination and infatuation with ultra urban landscapes has been off the wall. Whenever the daydreamer in me stares at cracks in the sidewalk, they look to me like tributaries leading to rivers and so on. If the cracks are straight lines they represent streets, especially if there are ants navigating along them in both directions.

Many of us taxi drivers who keep blogs tend to include a blog roll for our network of fellow taxi scribes. These rolls are often set up to display the one that most recently posted an entry, and so on down the line. In essence, we take turns jumping to the front of the pack, just like taxicabs in traffic. Those of us who take a nap on the curb or at the airport end up remaining in the same spot at the back of the line. How analogous.

I'll never forget my dad's story about a waiter who asked him if he wanted soup or salad. He thought they said, "would you like super salad?" When he answered, "yes please!," the waiter got annoyed and asked again. "Soup....or salad?" There were so many other options through the course of the meal that my dad was the one who became annoyed. Sometimes I feel like the waiter, and I assume the passenger feels like my dad.

Do you want that in the trunk?
Do you want to go up Sixth or Eighth?
Do you have a crosstown street that you prefer?
Do you want the left or the right side?
Do you want the near or the far corner?
Are you paying cash or credit?
Do you want the receipt?

THREE FAST NOTEWORTHY FARES OF RECENT:

1) In the Flower District I was hailed by a trio with lots of nursery merchandise, including a mid-sized tree in a large planter that had to fit across the floorboard, over their laps, and out the window. It all worked out just fine.

2) A couple got in with their newborn infant and joked about how they don't want to wake the baby because if he started to cry the cabdriver would kick them out of the taxi. That always-present initial ice broke right then and there. I didn't even have to make an effort. The rest of the ride was sweet and hilarious. It was nice to be reminded that there are people out there who still think of cabdrivers as human-- not a robot you can switch on and off, who emotionlessly listens to the re TV ads behind his head all day (which make it nearly impossible to have symbiotic communication with the passenger). A robot who can't make or receive any phone calls either, obviously because robots don't require any sort of interpersonal interaction. 12 hours of complete isolation a day? No problem!

3) A strung- out filmmaker hopped in on Bedford in Williamsbug. He had a cow in the backseat when he realized he spilled lens cleaner all over his video camera, because the cap came loose inside of his bag. He called up a colleague and the destination changed from somewhere in SoHo to the camera shop on Canal and Walker.

Valerie Smaldone, the graceful radio personality on news talk 710 am, aired an interview she conducted with an awkward, less-than-eloquent cabdriver on May 13th, during her lunchtime program on the hidden little facts of New York. The lucky cabdriver to be featured that day happened to be me. Here's a link to the on-demand podcast. My two minute segment of audial fame can be found toward the end of the show, around 75% of the way through.....

http://67.72.16.166/wor/2382022.mp3

AN EXCITING SHOW COMING UP IN BROOKLYN
MARCHING BANDS AND SKA BANDS ARE SOME OF MY FAVES....
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=115222455162251

FROM FIGURE MODELING TO CABBIE NEWS AND FASHION

Back when I lived in Florida, I used to model for high school and college drawing classes. I'd stay still in difficult poses for long periods of time, so that the art students could get a good sketch of the subject. I'd bring in all sorts of props to entice them to draw; like pick axes, shovels, hammers, hats, balls, books, and sometimes a knotted assortment of used rubber bicycle tubes to stretch out in. I'd use all these props to create poses that were more exciting for the students to draw than what they were used to (figure models with no imagination).

These pictures were taken by Sunny Shokrae, a professional photographer who came on board the cab to gather visual material on behalf of Danielle Friedman, a journalism student at Columbia, who had been interviewing cabdrivers for a story on how we feel about GPS + TAXI TV SCREENS. Obviously, we are not OK with the same obnoxious blurbs being repeated each time a new passenger gets in. She contacted me through this blog and interviewed me in the cab for an hour while jotting notes down. I hadn't felt like I was being watched by as many eyes as this since my days as a figure model in those art courses. Not much came out of it, except this article, and these leftover photographs.

FREEGANISM

When I moved to NYC in 2006, some of the first friends I made were part of something called the Freegan movement. I had arrived from Florida with nothing but an old bicycle, a map, a change of clothes, a toothbrush, and a sleeping bag. The first two weeks I spent nights on park benches and cardboard in the nooks of buildings. The second day here I found a job in the Village Voice classifieds. I delivered envelopes and packages on my bicycle for Champion Courier. They paid $3 per item and since all the nice runs were given to seniority, I was averaging around 6/hr. Far below minimum wage, but an exhilarating introduction to life in the Big Apple.

One day I happened to be fixing a flat in the Garment District when these two kids from the Freegan Bicycle Workshop walked by and offered me some donuts they had just scored on the curb around the corner. I followed them back to their space and made friends with all the other little Freegans. I learned some basic bike mechanics, where to look for free food, possibilities for squatting/couch surfing, and a whole lot more.

Through Rachel Sakristan, an artist and good friend from Barcelona, I met a wonderful couple from Andorra and Brazil who were in New York to shoot a short documentary about the so-called "Freegan" movement. They came along in my cab one shift and interviewed me on camera about my views regarding the philosophy behind it. I just saw it for the first time this week. Edu and Priscilla finally emailed me a Quick Time attachment of the clip. They weren't able to complete their documentary due to lack of funds. I must say, I'm not very fond of my barely coherent babbles throughout the 5 minutes. Wish I could have been more eloquent.

Jenine doesn't like the way the word "Freegan" is used now because it originally meant something else and because other words for what it means now have already existed for a long time. She's old-school in some ways and I like that about her. A freegan used to be someone who was a vegan, but would temporarily become vegetarian if the eggs, dairy, or pizza were free. Today the word Freegan has expanded to include anyone who not only eats ANYTHING (including meat) if it's free, but also seeks to find all the other components of life for free. Jenine prefers the older word GLEANER for this definition.

It's similar to my dissatisfaction with the spelling of the word Hanukkah. The 'H' doesn't do the rough guttural sound any justice. And the 'Ch' version already has a different sound in English. My conclusion would be to spell it Khanuqa. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy my expressive hand and finger gestures throughout the clip, because it's the only articulate aspect of the interview (my speech is laughable).

Spark of Actor Within

This past weekend I had a few special guests in my taxicab. An indie film crew shot the first part of a 10 episode series about a girl who just emigrated from Spain to New York. Besides driving while incessantly and aloofly on my phone, I played the 30 second, on-camera role of an ill-mannered hack who took a long route from JFK to her newly adopted home of Bushwick.

It's ironic, considering how hard I try to always be accommodating to my passengers and uplift the depressed reputation of taxis in this city. But unfortunately it is realistic. As I see cabbies do several times a day, my character refuses to help unload the trunk, after failing to answer her inquiries as to whether we were in Brooklyn or not. Pictured below from left to right are the director, the videographer, me, the actor, and the editor.


My initial connection to the film shoot was through Edu, the Andorran editor who resides in Barcelona. I met him and his Brazilian partner 2 years ago when they came to shoot a documentary about the Freegan movement in NYC. Our mutual friend and outspoken artist, Raquel Sacristan, introduced us. They interviewed me in a taxicab about my lifestyle and we stopped for curb scores in SoHo. The film never fully developed for lack of funding.

But Edu has renewed his promise to send me copies of both the older segment and this new one, as soon as he returns to Spain. Everyone on the set, except for me and the hip young American director, flew in from the Iberian Penninsula.

I was paid $100 for 3 hours, a good deal for me, considering it took place during the slower part of the shift. I met them in Williamsburg at 9 am. With the director up front and the cameraman and actress in the back, we got on the BQE to the LIE and looped back over the Kosciuszko Bridge via Maurice Avenue. The first scene was her reaction to Midtown's magestic skyline through the window.

The next scene was cruising down Washington Avenue in Clinton Hill, to give her the lovely (but false) impression she was moving into a beautiful brownstone neighborhood. As we turned down Myrtle Avenue, the landscape progressively deteriorated until we arrived at her destination, by the JMZ train. Then the camera focused on me collecting the overpriced fare without clear explanation or remorse as to why it was so expensive.

Next, I was filmed as I stepped out "angrily" to close the trunk, after she walked off having intentionally left it open. Below is a shot of the film crew editing the final scene, using furniture on a sidewalk display as their office (after receiving permission from the vendor.) The elephant woman with the big yellow underwear makes for a nice backdrop.

MY FIRST EVER 20 SECONDS OF AIR TIME

I tripped on a few of my words, but I still had a chance to be a voice in the massively variegated, yet little known world of taxi drivers.... though there are probably very few other cabbies who feel the same way about cabsharing as me. I appear about halfway through the clip, starting at 1:20. In response to the reporter's question, I simply try to say that all New Yorkers and visiting guests of every socioeconomic status should feel like they have financial access to taxicabs as often as the wealthy elite seem to.

If someone higher up on the ladder would relinquish some of the fortune they make off of the NYC taxi industry, perhaps drivers could make an income more in line with their grueling efforts, and other hardworking people wouldn't have to limit their taxi rides to the days they're late for work. But none on top would sacrifice for the greater good, so at least maybe a plan like this might help. And it would benefit the environment.

MORE OPPORTUNITIES

Dear Gil:
"I'm a reporter with RNN TV- an indie station which broadcasts throughout the Northeast. I'm doing a story about the future of NYC taxis and I'd like to interview you for our story. We're taking a look at the new technologies -- the TVs, cab-sharing pilot programs and multi-meter technology -- and I'd like your opinion. Will these "upgrades" affect drivers for the better/worse? What 'taxi charm' is lost with the TVs? Etc. Etc. We'd like to interview you in your taxi. When are you available for an interview? We can come to you -- in fact we'll be in NYC on Wednesday morning."
Thanks,
Elizabeth Wolff
Reporter, RNN-TV
Westchester, New York

OPPORTUNITIES

I GOT THIS EMAIL THAT REALLY GOT ME EXCITED, BUT I MIGHT NOT BE IN TOWN WHEN THEY COME TO FILM IT.... CALLING ALL COLORFUL CABBIES....

"Hello, I work as a researcher for a famous Dutch TV program. In the light of the 400th anniversary of the landing of Henry Hudson, our program will come to New York to report from the city to fill three shows. I saw your blog on the internet, that is why I write you this email.

We are interested in New York taxi drivers, because they fulfil an important role in the streetscape of the city, and definitely know a lot about New York. That's the reason why I am looking for remarkable taxi drivers. Taxi drivers that are colourfull and funny, and would like it to tell about their lives en their city New York in front of our camera. Are you such a taxi driver or do you know such taxi drivers? Can you tell me a bit more about yourself?

I hope to hear from you soon, thank you very much in advance for your response! You can reach me by email, or phone me. Because I have a Dutch phone number, you can also send me your phone number by email and then I will call you on a moment that is convenient for you."

Kind regards, Antoinette Kraal NCRV - Man Bijt Hond

T: 0031- 35 671 96 E: Antoinette.Kraal@ncrv.nl

THIS CABBIE WEARS FLEECE

These pictures were taken by Sunny Shokrae, a professional photographer who came on board the cab to gather material on behalf of Danielle Friedman, a journalism student at Columbia who has been interviewing cabdrivers (including me) for a story about how we feel about TAXI TV. Obviously, we are not OK with the same obnoxious blurbs being repeated each time a new passenger gets in. In case you didn't already know, the person in the 2nd picture is Jenine Bressner (mi enamorada). She was riding along with me that day.