Category Archives: Uncategorized

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25

Handed out at my garage

Handed out at my garage

 

“So how do you feel about the change in the speed limit next week?”

“No comment.”

It was exactly a month and a day ago that the speed limit in New York City was dropped to 25 M.P.H. for the first time in over two generations. For those of of us who were following the proposed change, it came as little surprise as the State Legislature passed the resolution before it broke for the summer and the City Council followed suit shortly afterward. With much fanfare and ballyhoo, there was a massive ad campaign notifying drivers of the drop, as well as signs located at all of the major entrances into Manhattan.

At first, it was something that was at the forefront of my mind. Would there be a ticket blitz? Would the traffic lights be re-timed in accordance with the drop? Would there be an increase in congestion to go along with the slower flow of vehicle speed? So far, there hasn’t been any sign of that as the recent foul weather and Grand Jury protests have done more to slow things down than any change to an existing law could ever do.

That doesn’t mean that the battle is over yet, however. The changing of the default speed limit has come along with the re-configuration of several key intersections, the renewal of the push to ban horse-drawn carriages from city streets, and an expansion of the bike share program that city sponsors. Should all of these proposals come to fruition, they will continue the assault on blue-collar vehicle drivers that was started under the Bloomberg administration, with further changes still likely next year and beyond.

As I’ve stated before, all of this ultimately ties into the Vision Zero initiative, although some changes aren’t directly related to any particular aspect of it. I have to remind my passengers often that the term “traffic-calming” is the buzzworthy term that describes the idea behind the changes is, as many of them are unfamiliar with what the city is accomplishing by remaking the streets and the way people move about them. Much as the circuitry in my brain has been hardwired to think and progress in a certain manner, so is the way I move from Point A to Point B as I take my fares to their particular destinations. A brain is much easier to reset than any street however, no matter how good the intentions by the DOT may be.

Drive 25

Drive 25

 

 

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The Cart

The Halal Guys - Midtown

The Halal Guys – Midtown

 

“Hey there, where to?”

“The cart.”

“53 and 6, right?”

“Is there any other?”

In the midst of all the fares that I’ve taken around New York, there have been a few instances where someone’s gotten into my Taxi and asked to be taken here. Not on the way to somewhere else, but just to “the cart”. All of us who drive a yellow vehicle for a living need to eat at some point during a shift and quite often, this is where we put our ride into park, get out, and have our dinners.

Even at my garage, this was a place we talked about fairly often. Once in a while, I’d catch a whiff of this when I got back after a long night out. Someone would get their dinner here, load it up with sauce, and then come back to eat once their ride was fueled up and parked on the lot. What is about this place that people were drawn to, whether they were workers, nightcrawlers, or anyone in between?

When I first started driving, I didn’t eat during my shift. I’m used going long distances and times between things in my life, mostly because how I focus and think. I almost always have a zillion thoughts and tasks going and I bounce around between them but once I’m in the driver’s seat, that all changes. Work *is* my focus, even if I’m in a deep conversation with someone in the back seat. More times than I can count, my passengers comment on how I don’t have the radio on or a bluetooth in my ear that I’m using to argue with someone and even in the wee hours of the morning, I tend to keep things pretty quiet as I’m cruising around. It’s only when nature calls and I can’t keep her on hold any more do I venture outside of it and back into the real world. Over time, I found my favorite spots – for walking, relieving myself, checking my phone, and eating; and when it came to the latter, there was no better locale in all of the Big Apple than the set of carts scattered around the corner of 6 Ave. and 53 St. in the middle of Midtown.

During the day, this is no-man’s land for cabdrivers. I say that jokingly because everyone is seemingly there when the workday ends for the rat racers and more times than I can count, I’ve ended up having to drop someone near this spot right in the midst of the madness. Just like a rainy day, a fare is easy to find near here in the midst of the rush but hard to move around, because of the proximity of this locale. With Central Park north of it, Times Square to the west, 5 Ave to the east, and 42 St to the south, there is no easy escape from New York’s most prominent hotel and street-food eatery when the masses are still out and about.

At night, it’s a different story.

Because of its width and timing of the traffic lights, 6 Ave is my preferred way to get uptown if I’m not taking one of the arteries on Manhattan’s periphery. Even when I have to get up to the 59 St. Bridge, I love taking 6 up and entering the corporate canyon that the XYZ Buildings of the 1960’s helped to create. Everything goes by so fast when you’re behind the wheel of a vehicle during the overnight hours but the exact opposite feeling takes hold once I park it and step out, seeing the monoliths that frame the plaza where The Halal Guys set up shop every day.

It’s such an odd location given the number of suits that pass by it but it’s easy for the tourists to each and there’s plenty of room to sit down and enjoy the creature comforts of a good chicken and lamb platter. One fellow driver told me that the New York Hilton offered them 7 figures to move but just as is the case with the companies surrounding them, the guys who work that corner know that it’s all about location, location, and location.

Or should I say, locations?

It was in the news a few weeks back that The Halal Guys are expanding and will soon be available to millions more potential customers around the United States. This is noteworthy for a few reasons, the most obvious being that street food in New York is big business and not a passing fad, even when it’s not hot dog and pretzels. In addition, the main location in Midtown is not enough for New Yorkers, as they can now go down to 14 St. to get their fix for a good platter. Anyone who’s ever eaten from a food truck and watched it move from parking space to parking space can vouch that having it at one spot is a good thign and draws life and vitality to sidewalks, even if restaurant owners feel that it’s direct competition. Last but not least, the ethnicity of America is changing and it will probably come to pass that we’ll see a national chain of Halal fast-food joints within the next 20 years, just as Taco Bell became the first one to serve Mexican food in such a manner from coast to coast.

For me, I’m happy with the original location. The only Nathan’s hot dog I’ve ever eaten was on the corner of Surf and Stillwell Ave’s in Coney Island and the only Shake Shack burger I’ve ever enjoyed was in Madison Square Park (after waiting on line forever, of course). Part of what makes food appealing to me is what makes so any other aspects of my life appealing as well, and that’s where I get it from. When it comes to  sounds, colors, smells, books I’ve read, and the people that I’m lucky to have come across, what seals the deal for me is where the interaction took place. Years after a particular event happened or a building that I love has been torn down, I go by and fondly recall what took occurred there. Smelling pretzels from a street vendor takes me back to the ’80’s when I didn’t go into New York often and I thought that 5 Ave. was the most exclusive street on the planet (which is up for a bit of a debate in today’s global economy).

Things change at an ever-increasing speed but for a sentimentalist like me, so much of what I come across in this world has been stuck in time, even if it’s only in my mind. I love my other mobile vendors to eat from in New York, like the Taco Truck on 14 St. just off 8 Ave. or the trucks on Bedford Ave. on my way back to my garage but there nothing like the spots that I keep coming back for a slice of comfort away from home. Years from now, the Halal Guys may be an empire on the level of the one Ray Kroc founded over 6 decades ago and I may be eating their dishes in a state or city far away from the bright lights of Manhattan. Nobody will ask me to take me there and I probably won’t be having my dinner at 3 in the morning when that day finally arrives, but it’ll be easy to think back to the times where I put everything on hold for a few minutes and savored the best that a plate of chicken, lamb, rice, lettuce, and sauce had to offer.

For this cabbie, the old saying doesn’t apply: You *can* take it with you, by memories if nothing else.

Taco Truck - Meatpacking District

Taco Truck – Meatpacking District

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Zero Tolerance

Safe Driver Pledge

Safe Driver Pledge

 

Vision Zero came a bit closer to reality this week when the City Council passed 11 bills and resolutions aimed at forwarding the Mayor’s ambitious traffic-calming agenda. No longer will it be an idea aimed at lowering traffic accident and fatalities, but it will actually be taking root in the physical design of roads, plazas, and enforcement, with the intent on lowering the amount of deaths on New York’s streets down to a goal of none.

While this is quite an ambitious goal, much of it’s implementation remains to be seen. So far, there has been a crackdown on speeding in the Five Boroughs, a re-timing of the traffic lights on Atlantic Ave. to coincide with the lowering of its speed limit to 25 M.P.H., and the retooling of accident-prone intersections like Broadway and 96 St. in Manhattan. While this is good news, much of the agenda is unfairly targeting those in the business that I currently earn my vocation in.

I won’t lie – we are to blame for some of the discontent that people feel towards motorized vehicles in New York. I don’t think that any cabdriver that strikes and maims a pedestrian should be allowed to drive for a living again and that a fair number of us give everyone in my profession a bad name. With that being said, I do think that we are still be unfairly targeted. Jaywalkers? They don’t get tickets. MTA Buses? I see them blow lights all the time. Sanitation trucks? Ditto for them as well and while emergency vehicles need to speed to get to where they’re going, some of their tactics are a lot more dangerous that I would have been led to believe before I worked into the wee hours 4 nights a week.

My point? If this is going to be shared sacrifice, then let’s see everyone chip in together. Bikers are still getting away with riding against the flow of traffic, as many of the offenders don’t have the right head or body gear on in case of accidental contact with a larger vehicle. Bus lanes are fine as long as the public at large realizes that Taxis are being told to stay out of them at nearly all costs (which is fine until someone wants to get off on the right side of 1 or Madison Ave’s), and no one gets a free pass to recklessly speed as they please; whether that would be the Mayor’s entourage or the juvenile whizzing up the FDR at 4 in the morning on a Saturday night before shattering his ride into a thousand pieces.

There are so many issues in New York of greater importance right now and like the proposed ban on carriage horses, this one is easy to rally around since opposing it makes a person seem in favor of the old and reckless streets of yesteryear. Once the schools perform up to par, housing is accessible to all classes, transit fares are held in check, taxes and utility rates increase slower than the rate of inflation, and people are coming off of the public-assistance rolls instead of onto them, then quality-of-life issues can more up to the front burner.

One death on the streets of New York is too many but so is one at the hands of gangs, cops, unsafe buildings, guns, and other factors that are magnified in a place of 8 million people. If the people truly want streets to be completely safe at any cost, they then should be prepared to realize that the price may be just a bit too high to bear. Zero tolerance of any evil, wrongdoing, or negative externality may look great on paper but so did communism and socialism. Utopia’s never work out as planned but *someone* has to pay the price to an ever-increasing cost of achieving perfection while the attempt to reach that status is in progress.

Even with a 2/3 reduction in murders since the height of the crack epidemic in the late ’80’s and early ’90’s, some people feel that there are still too many citizens who die at the hands of violence every year. It’s been so long that many have forgotten how things used to be and only remember the last 5 or so years. Ditto for fuel efficiency of cars and industrial buildings, urban blight, and maintenance on parks, bridges, and subways. There will always be room for improvement and even in my line of work, I always push myself to learn something new every day about the city and ways to get around it. What I need to remember is that most of us have come a long way in our respective fields and lives and though perfection is worth striving for, it will always remain elusive and just beyond reach.

Bill of Rights (for cabbies)

Bill of Rights (for cabbies)

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Bringing Down the House

Roseland Ballroom - Theatre District

Roseland Ballroom – Theatre District

 

“Can’t read my, can’t read my, no he can’t read my poker face…”

“Lemme guess, ya went to the Lady Gaga concert tonight at the Roseland Ballroom.”

“Oh yeah!”

“How was it?”

“It was greeeeaaaatttttt!”

The last few weeks were notable in the annals of Gotham’s nightlife for two seemingly unrelated reasons. The first of which was the closing of the Roseland Ballroom and although it had been around since 1919, it called 52 Street home only since 1958. I attended one concert there and aside from the girl I was with bailing on me, the most memorable part of the night was that like every other attendee there, I had to stand for the entire show that Hot Chip put on. Given that the building’s prior use was as a skating rink, it only made sense that even after it was renovated in the early 90’s, that the giant floor remained without seats and column-free. Long gone were the days of ballroom dancing there as big acts coveted the space in recent years, due to the site’s location and mid-sized capacity. Sure, the Garden and the Barclay’s Center are the top-of-the-line spaces today but as was the case with Lady Gaga, performers loved playing at the Roseland because it was “homecoming” of sorts as many of them attended concerts there when they were growing up.

What many people didn’t notice was that right before the Roseland shut its doors for good, none other than the Godfather of House passed away. Francis Nicholls passed on at the age of 59 but to nearly everyone, he was known as Frankie Knuckles. Frankie was a DJ and I mean a real, innovative, groundbreaking, DJ…and not someone who took a device, plugged it in, and let it play his favorite songs for 3 hours. Like David Morales, Todd Terje, and Junior Vasquez, Frankie provided the soundtrack for so many people that needed to let off steam via the radio or at one of the city’s late night wonderlands. I passed by many of them during the day when I was growing up but since I was (and still am, to some extent) the shy, suburban brainiac that has dance moves worse than Elaine Benes, I never saw the inside of the establishments that helped make New York the glittering Oz that lay off to the east of my humble abode.

Growing up in the ’80’s and ’90’s meant that house music was the soundtrack to my Friday and Saturday nights. See, in those days, we didn’t have the internet. No cell phones either. Just a radio next to my bed and some videos on MTV sprinkled amongst the Hair Bands, 3rd British Invasion groups, and still-emerging genre known as hip-hop was all I had to get my fix. Once in a while, I’d get the cassette tapes synced up right and record American Dance Traxx, which counted down the top dance songs in the United States each week. Once I started driving and staying up late, I had Hot-97 going constantly (it didn’t flip over to hip-hop until 1993) and later on, the new ‘KTU. The ups, downs, heartbreaks, agonies, lonely rides home, and everything in between took place with 120 bpm’s of soothing grooves in the background, until the night ended or the next misadventure began. Somewhere, I had aspirations of manning the 1 and 2’s but that never happened and a short-lived stint on WRVU in Nashville was as close as I ever came to running the show myself.

Marquee - Chelsea

Marquee – Chelsea

“Oh, it was real good. Maybe even better than the Halal Guys on 6 & 53.”

“They’re out all night, right?”

“Well, I see them there late on weekends but on Monday night, I got there around 2:50. Grabbed my chicken and lamb, sat down in the cab to eat because it rained and when I got out to throw the container away, they were gone.”

“But that’s a busy spot.”

“Not on Monday. Marquee wasn’t open. Neither was Greenhouse, The Box, or any other club in Manhattan for that matter. That’s why I ate there when I did.”

“Tunnel and Twilo used to be right on that black.”

“Not anymore. Now it’s the Hotel Americano and the McKittrick there.”

Nightlife drives so much of our business. Not just taking people to and from the clubs but seeing what’s open, what’s closed, and what areas of town are “it” among the nightcrawlers. Wanna find out what ‘hoods are jumping and desirable? See where the impresario’s are plunking down their hard-earned money into a place that will probably have a shelf life of 5-10 years. New York is littered with the shells of venues that would write books if they could talk but are no longer relevant to the 20something looking to impress a date. Chelsea had the Roxy, Splash, and the Sound Factory but one by one, they closed as the scene moved further west. Tunnel and Twilo were huge a few years later and soon, Bungalow 8 and it’s fusion of celebrity, food, drink, and decor set the scene for the Lavo’s and Standard’s of today. Now, the Meatpacking District holds sway when it comes to where New Yorkers spend their hard-earned money, but that statement alone is an indicator of how much the scene has changed in recent years.

Back in the day, dance clubs were much more inclusive. All walks of life came out in their Monday, Saturday, or Sunday best to party until the wee hours of the morning. Although house is widely known to have started in Chicago, it was in New York that it took off. Around the same time, people sampling James Brown, Motown and Stax records up in the Bronx were sowing the seeds for the shoots that later blossomed into rap and ultimately, hip-hop All that was needed was a good set of Technic 1200’s, a stack vinyl, headphones, a mixer, and a venue.

And music was never the same after that.

New York *had* to be the place where it took off because it’s where everyone came together – not just through Ellis Island, but in basements, warehouses, converted roller rinks,  theaters, and in the case of the Empire Roller Skating Center, a former garage used by the Brooklyn Dodgers. The first dance craze that swept America in 50 years had a brilliant, brief flash in the late 1970’s but once Disco has it’s last dance, the movements that were still bubbling up during it’s heyday came to the surface and left their mark on the following decades.

Rap had it’s MC’s and house had it’s DJ’s and for the first time, *they* were the stars of the show. Other forms of music had a singer, a band, or a singer with a band in the background, playing standards and favorites for the audience. Once everything went electronic, the rules changed. Diana Ross could be mixed with Abba, followed by Blondie or Maceo Parker and people going out loved moving their asses off to it. Just as all history is revisionist, all music that came along only made the mixes better, the nights richer, and the samples that much deeper. No one knew what was next but everyone knew that a skilled mixmaster at the helm could put it all together.

Former Studio 54 Locale - Theater District

Former Studio 54 Locale – Theater District

No doubt that the good ones did, including Frankie Knuckles. One of my biggest regrets in life was that I never got dressed to the 9’s (or 8’s) and went out on a Saturday night to hear someone like him work his magic. Slowly but surely, the clubs that were made famous by him and the other DJ’s that I grew up with closed one by one. The most tragic tale of all was that of the Palladium on 14 St. Opened in 1927 as a concert hall, it was renovated by none other than Studio 54’s Steven Rubell and Ian Schrager in the ’80’s. After it re-opened, it was featured prominently on Club MTV and boasted a now-outdated set of monitors that could show videos in various arrays and patterns. While successful in it’s second incarnation, it was bought by NYU, torn down, and replaced with…

…Palladium Hall, which is a dorm now inhabited by students who have no idea why it’s called that or what used to sit on that site.

Palladium Hall - Union Square

Palladium Hall – Union Square

More importantly, many of those students are now living off of their parents credit cards and giving this cabdriver plenty of headaches when he has to haul them around New York in the wee hours of the weekend.

Everyone will point to Giuliani for cracking down on the club scene in the waning years of his mayoralty but had he not done that, most of them would still not be up and running today. Like malls, roller rinks, and bowling alleys, the clubs that were patronized by the masses is now a relic of America’s Past. Too many people would rather plug into something on a weekend night than go out to hobnob with strangers. Those that do go out do not dress outlandishly anymore or have killer dance moves. Rather, they come equipped with a different form of currency for nightlife.

The black card.

I hear it referenced all the time on the job and it’s usually a giveaway that the person who has it is a douche bag. VIP rooms and bottle service are only recent phenomenon that has made clubbing, like so many other aspects of New York life in the 21 century, a haven for the well-to-do. Every year, the bouncers get bigger, the vehicles that people drive to and from the venues get nicer, and the price of admission and bottles goes higher and higher. I hear big numbers being dropped all the time and one of the craziest stories I’ve overheard in my Taxi involved someone who wandered onto the wrong floor of a new and popular hotel where many flock to get their groove on. Two huge guys guarded the room as someone behind them was counting a massive stack of $100’s, as the wayward imbiber quietly closed the door and went back to where the action was.

All of that aside, what has changed in New York was the movement away from the DJ or the MC. Iphones, playlists, the internet, and electronic mixing have all combined to make the art of in-house music production easier now and with that ease has come a complete lack of cohesion on the part of many who have been entrusted to provide a soundtrack for a given night. I don’t care for celebrity playlists and none of them can take a Top 40 hit and remix it by speeding it up, sampling a beat behind it, or extending it for an additional 3 or 4 minutes. House and early hip-hop emphasized dancing, partying, and a come-as-you-are mentality that made everyone a part of the action. Now, it’s about the scene, snapping selfies, telling everyone that you were there, and moving on to the next “it” establishment, only to repeat the process all over again. Former Village Voice writer Michael Musto explained it perfectly when he stated that “The time is over. Things changed.” when referring to the demise of the club scene in New York when he was growing up but it took a lot of changes in locales, music, economics, and conventional wisdom to put the final nails into the coffin.

Sure, the current club-hopping among the uber-wealthy is good for my line of work but it makes for lousy venues and the lack of true mixmasters today means that I can’t find what I love on the radio anymore. No one’s going to look back fondly when Avenue or 1OAK closes down and everyone has to be spotted at the next hot spot that’s even more lavish, exclusive, and expensive.

Like so much else today, the romance has been sucked out of nightlife and New York is certainly worse off for it.

 

 

 

 

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Speed Limits

City Limit - Greenpoint

City Speed Limit – Greenpoint

 

It was with great fanfare recently that Mayor De Blasio announced his “Vision Zero” initiative. Given the rash of pedestrian fatalities in the 5 Boroughs so far this year, it was only a matter of time before Hizzoner found a cause that everyone could rally around. With his popularity taking a hit after the Charter Schools, nepotism, and snow removal controversies this past winter, continuing the trend of pedestrian safety that was started by his predecessor was certainly a smart thing to do. Whether it’s a policy that’s actually worthy following is another matter altogether.

For the record, I have stated online and to my passengers that 30 is where the speed limit should be.

No higher, and certainly no lower.

No one would argue for the former but plenty of people can’t wait to put the proverbial (and literal) brakes on motorized vehicles in New York and lower it as fast as possible. How many deaths is too many? One is, and we certainly have more than that annually. While I don’t feel that blood should be spilled due the raging nature of those who treat thoroughfares as urban highways, the issues is much deeper than just slowing everyone down for the sake of it.

The other day, a bunch of guys in my garage were talking about this. They felt that all bets would be off once it’s down to 25 M.P.H.,. Why not 20? 15? Heck, let’s just go along with the plan and shut the meter off when the Taxi goes over the speed limit. If we ever get to that point, I can guarantee you that a lot of us would get up and call it quits before proceeding to look for work in other fields.

Like virtually every other aspect of civic life, there are already too many laws on the books. That’s not enough for everyone who comes into office looking to make his or her mark, however. Existing laws only serve to move the equilibrium. Crime’s too high? Make them stricter. Once the crime rate goes down, the noose has to tighten a bit more, and the cycle continues. The only question is where does it stop, since common sense never plays into whether the existing rules and regulations are readily enforceable.

Take a good look at the cars on the FDR during the overnight hours, the Mayor’s cavalcade burning rubber through Queens, or any New Yorker in a rush to get to Penn or Grand Central right after work. All of them are in a big hurry to get to where they’re going, limits be damned. Of course, none of them will be targeted under a crackdown in the name of pushing the fatality rate even lower. If not them, then who?

I don’t think I even have to say it.

We’ve endured roller-coaster gas prices, higher lease fees, a six-cent health surcharge, the dispatchers at JFK treating us like the shit that we endure from them, and more aggressive “enforcement” on account of the NYPD in recent years. Although we have so much to give to New York, in terms of value, revenue, and positive impressions, we are not a golden goose that can be raided over and over again at will. If the Mayor wants to cut the number of deaths on the street to zero, everyone’s going to have to contribute. That includes the jaywalkers, livery cabs, buses, speeders, bicyclists, drunk drivers, the MTA, and motorists with suspended licenses. As a group, the Taxi drivers have the best record of any subset of drivers in Gotham but none of the others pull in the bucks where we do and if you’re going to figure out what’s first in the line of fire, the old adage applies here once again:

Follow the money.

For now, we still go. Any change in the speed limit would have to go through the State Legislature and that doesn’t look like it’s happening anytime soon. After that, the traffic lights would have to be re-timed and hordes of signs such as the one pictured above would have to be taken down and replaced as well. While I think that improvements could be further made to the flow of vehicles and certain intersections in the city, a goal of zero deaths by collisions is impossible to achieve. The day that getting into an accident becomes illegal by penalty under law is the day I take my hack license out of the holder at the end of my shift for the last time.

And that’s when we’ve truly hit absolute zero.

 

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The Last Days of Bloomberg

The once and future Hudson Yards - West Side

The site of the once and future Hudson Yards – West Side

“Hey there, where to?”

“30 St. between 1 and 2 Ave.’s”

“Sure thing. How’d your day go?”

“Long.”

“Usually is for most people when they get out at this hour.”

So I made my way crosstown through the occupational centers of the Mad Men and the money shufflers, before whizzing down 2 Ave, engaging in a conversation with my lively passenger. Eventually, the topic of the inauguration after the New Year came up as I made the turn, proceeded to park, and stopped the meter:

“Are you ready for the new Mayor to take office next week?”

“Not really. I”m going to miss Mike.”

“Me too. There were a few things I don’t like about him but I think he’s not being judged fairly and only time will prove that he did a good job running this place for the last 12 years.”

“What don’t you like about him?”

“Well, here he is – running one of the largest and arguably the most important city in the world. He has power, lots of it too and what does of focus on? Trans Fats. Soda. Cigarettes. Bike Lanes. Now me, I don’t smoke, always buckle up and I don’t eat a lot of foods that are bad for me. You’ll never catch me doing that but if someone were to, I don’t think that it’s the job of the government to look over my shoulder and tell me what I can and can’t do. It’s the nanny state at its worst and a waste of time that could be spent on much more important things, like economic competitiveness, quality of life issues, and of course, housing.”

“I see your point but let me put it this way. Bloomberg realizes that all of those issues are negative drains on this city in terms of lives and capital. Take care of them now and they’re not issues down the road. Spiraling healthcare costs are something that could be averted ahead of time, saving billions from future budgets and allowing people to live longer as well. He’s doing his best to take care of those who have proven that they could be more capable of taking care of themselves.”

“Fair point.”

Three weeks ago, a ceremony as frosty as the weather that descended over Gotham this January took place in Lower Manhattan. Bill de Blasio was sworn in as 109th Mayor of the City of New York. What people remembered more was not the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to another, but the overall tone of the day. Ex-President Bill Clinton was there to swear in the former Public Advocate into his new position and singer Harry Belafonte gave a speech comparing New York is to a plantation. Making the spectacle that much more uncomfortable was that the outgoing Mayor was present throughout the whole ordeal, as other officials and dignitaries joined in in the proverbial trashing of his administration and its policies.

For someone that rose up at Solomon Brothers to the point of running its trading floor, to the founding of the media and financial information company that still bears his name to this day, to the running of North America’s most influential City on a self-financed campaign, the proverbial ending of his political career could not have been any more demeaning. Had anyone not noticed the relatively clean streets, low crime rate, return of cranes to the skyline, and the record 50 million tourists that came to New York last year, they would have possibly believed that the first decade of this Century had been a mistake, once the rubble at Ground Zero was cleared away in March of ’02.

So was New York really better off than it was 12 years ago?

There was no doubt that the resolve of New York had never been tested as much as it was on 9/11. A nation that was pulling out of the recession of the dot-com era was threatened with another economic downturn as the World Trade Center was leveled in a matter of hours, in what turned out to be the first shots of the War on Terror. The Mayoral Primary that was scheduled to be held that day was pushed back by a few weeks as emergency crews rushed down to Lower Manhattan and the rest of the nation came to a standstill. What looked like something catastrophic turned out to be awkward pause in the city’s recovery from the bankruptcy and municipal malfeasance that nearly drove New York into oblivion in the 70’s. Narrowly beating out former Public Advocate Mark Green that November, Mike Bloomberg was the choice of New Yorkers to continue the recovery both from the days of malaise and the mess that covered 16 acres in Lower Manhattan.

Bloomberg was unlike anyone that ever ran for the position of the second-most powerful person in the United States (apologies to the Vice President). Rich, centrist, and self-financed, Bloomberg stated that if elected, would serve the city for the salary of $1 per year. Given that New York hadn’t elected a true Republican to the office of Mayor in generations, he only switched affiliations to get on the ballot and to stand out from his Democratic challengers. New Yorkers did not know what they were getting with him since he didn’t have a track record and when he left office 12 years later, many were still unsure as to what his legacy would be for the overall metropolis at large.

Critics would say that he ignored the outer Boroughs at the expense of Manhattan and it’s monied elites while spending too much time worrying about trivialities like landing the 2012 Olympic games or redesigning streets for bikes and hastily-designed pedestrian plazas that were demarcated by spaced-out planters and concrete blocks and balls. Proponents pointed to the economic health of the City, low crime rate, and a majority of New Yorkers stating that they approved of his policies on the day when he left office. As is the case with anyone in a position of power, time will ultimately prove whether these claims have any real validity, but the early cues point to tenure that left New York in better shape than it was before he entered office.

Arguably, the two biggest gaffes during his tenure turned out to be blessings in disguise. One was the failed attempt to land the 2012 Olympics in the Big Apple, under the pretense that it would show the World how New York had bounced back from the attacks of 9/11. Then-Senator Hillary Clinton got on board and was shown on TV as being quite disappointed the day the IOC chose London as the host site. Many New Yorkers were quite vocal in their opposition to the staging of the games in the Big Apple, for several reasons. First was traffic, as the West Side of Manhattan would have been the site of the Olympic Stadium. It lacked any nearby Subway access and those would have gone to the events via ferry would have had to trek around the still-awkward Javits Center, which was never fully integrated into the surrounds upon its completion in 1985. Most locals didn’t want the Jets to call the stadium him once the games were over, as would have been the case had New York landed the games. Housing would also have been a tough sell, as the proposed Olympic village in Queens would had to have been built from scratch, on the East River waterfront. Schools, parks, expanded mass transit, and affordable housing was what the West Side and the surrounds needed, not another monstrosity that would have sat unused much of the time.

The other big mistake that Bloomberg made was thinking that he could change the City Charter and easily be re-elected for a third term. For the record, it was indeed changed but not after a prolonged and nasty exchange, instigated by many New Yorkers who viewed it as a sign of hubris and arrogance by Hizzoner. Many of those displeased by the proposed alteration of the rules had a chance to voice their disapproval in a public hearing but in the end, it was Bloomberg who looked better for it. Both the City Council Speaker who silently went along with the other party’s figurehead and the opponent who ran against him in the Mayoral Election in ’09 ultimately ended up being harmed by the third thought that he eventually sought out and won.

Of course, they wouldn’t realize it until they ran for that same position four years later and lost to the person that was sworn in three weeks ago.

Bloomberg might not have known what to do when it came to issues but he put the right people into place that helped him craft the legacy that will define his years in office. Without a doubt,  the most important was Dan Doctoroff, who will be remembered for generations as the person who took the failed bid for the Olympics and reworked into the Hudson Yards proposal that’s finally starting to come into fruition. The parks, schools, open space, housing, new Class A office space, and Mass Transit extension that New Yorkers were clamoring for could all be found on the West Side, over a platform that would place the railyards there out of sight. It was being done on a smaller scale in Brooklyn at the Atlantic Yards side and since so many were enamored with the Barclay’s Center, they could only look uptown in greater anticipation at what would ultimately rise in the former wasteland between the Chelsea and Clinton neighborhoods.

It wasn’t all rosy for Bloomberg during his time in office, though. It took forever to get anything rising out of the ground at the World Trade Center site, although that was also the fault of the Port Authority, Governor of New York, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the insurance companies that were sued, and a host of other agencies and corporations that had a stake in what would emerge from the ashes of 9/11. Housing and office space continued to skyrocket in cost around the city as the number of affordable units that were built were nowhere near enough to keep up with rising demand, and whole sections of Brooklyn and Western Queens became unaffordable to all but the uber-wealthy. Streets in the Outer Boroughs took forever to get plowed in major storms and even someone as powerful as him was unable to have a transit strike averted in the waning days of ’05, as Ed Koch and John Lindsay also found out during their helms of the World’s Greatest City.

Bloomberg also found out that being one of the 100 richest people in the United States doesn’t allow you to stand stoic as the tide of history threatens to wash over everything in front of it. As this cabdriver learned the hard way, Occupy Wall Street and Hurricane Sandy were two events that no one was unable to stop in their tracks. Both left New York radically different in their aftermath and had many questioning whether Gotham would be prepared for similar events that seemed inevitably on their way to striking. It was with that gusto, as well as the premise of change that elected a Senator from Illinois to become America’s Commander-in-Chief 5 years prior, that finally saw a Public Advocate become the person that New Yorkers trusted to lead them in the post-Bloomberg era.

Immediately into her new term, that leadership has already been called upon as a rash of pedestrian deaths via vehicles, a crippling snowstorm, and even the promotion of Hizzoner’s wife to a paid government position have drawn harsh lines in the proverbial sand. Is 30 M.P.H. too high a speed limit for traffic? Was the Upper East Side plowed properly for the evening rush hour? Did New Yorkers elect de Blasio’s family to serve the public-at-large? These answers remain to be seen, but before housing, inequality, taxation, universal Pre-K, and better representation of the Outer Boroughs could be addressed, this was what would have to be dealt with during the key “first 100 days”.

It’s way too early to tell whether New Yorkers pulled the lever voted for the right person last November but it’s pretty sure that they did the right thing during the previous three elections. For all the complaining that my fellow cabdrivers made about how overbearing the NYPD was on them (and I have to agree with my fellow drivers on this one), Bloomberg did his best to ensure that City would be left in better shape than how he found it. Leaving de Blasio with a balanced budget was the ultimate sign that whatever pitfalls faced in future could not be laid at his feet, even if the $35 billion budget that he submitted in ’02 was nominally half of that of the final one that he presided over years later.

Once the life expectancy of New Yorkers levels off or neighborhoods stagnate years after Hudson Yards is completed, the legacy that Bloomberg had a hand in creating will be fully visible for all to witness, and ultimately judge him by. His billions will continue to be donated to worthy causes and hopefully, his expertise in running a major city can be handed down to those entrusted to handle the challenge of the repopulating America’s urban centers in an increasingly technological and greening world. Those who wish to make cities relevant into the 22 Century and beyond would be wise to learn from the person who was able to successfully bridge the World’s premier metropolis from the 20 into the 21 Century, as it went through and emerged from its darkest hour.

You are here - Times Square

You are here – Times Square

by

Make the Road By Walking

Pedestrians - Times Square

Pedestrians – Times Square

“Sorry about that. I normally don’t slam the brakes but sometimes, I don’t have a choice.”

“It’s not your fault that these people never look.”

“I know, but I have to still be careful. Some of them are my future passengers.”

Pedestrians.

I can’t stand them.

Most of the people in my business would probably say the same thing if they were to be asked about those on foot as well. With tourism at a record high and the economy in the Big Apple in decent shape, there’s never been more of them to contend with during a shift. For the record, I haven’t hit one yet but I’ve had enough close calls that I still haven’t completely mastered the art of dodging them with ease. I don’t mean to bash them – after all, I learned my way around New York by being one for many years as well, since I hardly ever drove in from my humble suburbs of New Jersey. I could count the number of times I brought my vehicle across the Hudson River in the 15+ years between the obtainment of my driver’s license and my hack license. Thankfully, I was able to get a lay of the land via foot before getting behind the wheel for a living on a nightly basis.

The average walker in Gotham has had it better than ever in recent years. While traffic fatalities remain a problem, they are in the news more than ever now and with the new mayoral team set to take office late next week, pedestrian safety already seems like it will move to the forefront of issues that need to be addressed. Yes, there will always be taxis that jump the curb and people racing around way too fast in the wee hours of the morning but the changes that have been implemented lately are already a harbinger of what’s to come.

And nowhere is this more apparent than on the Great White Way.

For those unfamiliar with the street grid in Manhattan, Broadway is the major exception to the orderly layout of thoroughfares from the Commissioner’s Plan of 1811. North of Houston Street, there were to be 12 major Avenues running north-south and 155 total Streets running east-west, which was later extended upwards as more of Manhattan became settled. Older thoroughfares like Greenwich Ave. and the Bowery would remain in place but for the most part, the plan that was drawn up was remarkably close to the one that was laid out. Central and Gramercy Parks filled in some of the streets with a superblocked green space and the topography of the northern part of the island dictated that some streets (like 116) would not be able to stretch from river to river. Mother nature also showed some resiliency over mankind’s attempt in impose an order of enlightened rationality, without having to tear apart the existing urban fabric like what was done in Paris by Baron Haussmann. Although part of the Village was indeed demolished to make way for the southern extension of 6 and 7 Ave’s in the early 20th Century, very little changed when it came to the layout of Manhattan’s arteries, unless one takes into the account the reworking of the Avenues into one-way streets in the 1950’s.

That was until Mayor Bloomberg came along.

Led by Transportation Commissioner Jeanette Sadik-Khan and City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, many thoroughfares were remade into “Complete Streets” during his 12 years as Mayor. Inspired by European cities, autos would no longer gain precedence when it came to deciding how the space on a given street would be utilized. Widening streets would no longer be an option, traffic calming measures would be implemented, and for the second time (the first being under Mayor Koch in 1980), bike lanes would be added to allow for the easier and safer movement of two-wheeled non-motorized vehicles. Hardly a week goes by now where someone at my garage isn’t complaining about bikes flying the wrong way down the lanes, traffic caused by them, or tickets being given out by the NYPD because a passenger wanted to be discharged in a lane and someone had a quota to fill that day. Toss in the addition of protected bus lanes on 1, 2, and Lexington Ave’s and the midtown bus lanes on Madison Ave being expanded from rush hours to all hours, and the ripple effect from the changes ended up affecting more than just those who had to make a living on the same streets that were becoming less and less spacious for motor vehicles.

So where did Broadway fit into all of this?

To put it simply, it didn’t.

North of Union Square, Broadway was a diagonal street that also served as a double-edged sword. When it crossed 5 or 6 Avenue’s, the result was a square that allowed for more sun and air to reach down to the streets, as well as for buildings like the Flatiron that were able to break free of the rectilinear mold that so many others were cast in. Where Broadway messed things up was in the traffic flow, as intersections that were two-phased were now forced to become three-phased. None of the streets were given sufficient time to get all of the traffic through the intersections. This called for some changes to the layout of Broadway and during Bloomberg’s tenure, an extraordinarily bold step was taken:

Broadway would be closed off to all traffic.

This didn’t take place along the entire length of it but through Times and Herald Squares, Broadway would no longer flow through them as it did for generations. There was significant outcry at first as drivers bemoaned the loss of more street space and were fearful of increased traffic on parallel routes. Even though this change was made before I started my current occupation, I could see that some of these fears were justified. Times Square is a complete mess now, as the increased space given for sidewalks has been nowhere near enough to compensate for the massive expansion in retail and office space that recent rezoning has allowed for. It’s torn apart nearly every night and since only one street flows out of it now, backups are quite common well after Midnight on most nights, when most of the rest of the City has quieted down.

As for 6 Ave, it flows better through Herald Square as the green phase on the lights is longer than it was when Broadway still went through it. While it is a plus, most of the rest of the Avenue of the Americas still gets congested during rush hours as the office buildings along it empty out and the buses jockey along the right-hand side of the street to get ahead of each other. Where Broadway still messes up the pulse of the City is in front of Lincoln Center, as it has to content with Columbus Ave and 65 St for valuable green time where they all cross. Since Broadway is a two-direction street north of Columbus Circle, further changes are not likely along it. Where changes will be seen is in how those outside of Manhattan will get from Point A to Point B.

The concept of Select Bus Service, which allows for express buses in dedicated lanes has taken off in the Outer Boroughs in the last few years and will probably be expanded under Bill de Blasio. If it gets people out of their vehicles, that’s great but already there has been an outcry along Nostrand Ave in Brooklyn as only *one* lane can now be used by cars that make their way down it. As New York grows in population and more people move to those Outer Boroughs, the ideas that first took root in Manhattan will branch out down major streets one by one. The difference is that Manhattan has a density seen in only a few other places on the Earth, while the Outer Boroughs have a lot more room to work when it comes to converting the layout of the streets there. Subways and until recently, metered Taxi service are lacking in many commuter and immigrant neighborhoods which has made the expansion of buses the preferred method of mass transit growth throughout much of the City. While many in Manhattan asked for SBS, many outside of it haven’t and it remains to be seen whether complete streets will be opposed more as the program takes off any further. Social engineering was easier in crowded Manhattan but in a less dense environment, would the conversion be met as receptively?

Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about that as the county known as New York still remains my home base and the one that I’ve gotten to know the best. One of the reasons I loved walking around it when I was still getting to know the layout of neighborhoods was that the traffic was so bad, and this was before the boom in tourism, drop in crime, and growth in people returning to New York from the suburbs led to more vehicles on the streets of the Big Apple. The number of yellow cabs has been capped for years, even though that’s set to change as more Outer Borough Taxis are added to the mix and the 1,500 medallions that were recently sold come online. It’s only a matter of time before Bus and bike lanes are expanded and more turn restrictions are added along the two-way crosstown rues like 23 and 34 Sts. Of course, emergency vehicles and the NYPD can turn wherever they want, but who’s going to ever pull *them* over?

I couldn’t imagine having to learn Manhattan by foot now, as Citi Bikes have permeated into every nearly nook and cranny south of Central Park and the attitudes of those riding them have threatened to make even the most relaxed of cabdrivers want to teach them a lesson or two. The calmness of backwater neighborhoods has been replaced by a frenzy that will only see temporary dips during the next recession, only to grow even further as upzoning results in more people needing to get around with less room to do so.

Someday when I’m not driving anymore, I’ll pick up where I left off in the ’90’s and set to re-explore what I can on foot. It won’t be the same as then, as everyone has their heads buried in their phones now and would rather let their apps be their brains instead of learning in ins and outs of neighborhood nuances on their own. I will fight the good fight and do my best to go where I want when I want, as more plazas, fences, security barriers, and closings will be put into place, all in the name of “security”, “flow”, “throughput”, and “efficiency”. The City I grew up with is still the one I desperately hold onto, even as it’s being remade into a playground for those who are totally unaware of the way things used to be. I know full well that I can’t go back, but I’ll refuse to go go forward without being dragged into the future. I can only hope that the planners and leaders of tomorrow take into account all modes of transit and show consideration for those who need to make a living on the street, no matter how they choose to get around.

“Don’t you think that bikes need some of the street too?”

“Look at this traffic. Do you think that anyone needing an ambulance is going to have one come on two wheels?”

Broadway, interrupted - Herald Square

Broadway, interrupted – Herald Square

by

Reflector

“I thought I found the connector – it’s just a reflektor”

-Arcade Fire

Reflection - Bryant Park

Reflection – Bryant Park

“Hey there, where to?”

“505 W. 37.”

“How’d your you day go?”

“Long.”

“Sorry to hear that. At least it’s over now.”

“Thank God!”

I have something closely resembling this conversation 5 times every week, for nearly every week since I started my current occupation. It’s never enjoyable to feel like that life has been reduced to a routine straight out of Groundhog Day but for the late-night cabbie, that turns out the be the case more often than not. *Twice* on Monday alone did I have someone come into my cab and utter nearly the same words:

“Didn’t I have you before?”

Sure enough, both of those people did.

One of them was a restaurant owner that I had to take to his establishment in the West Village. A month or two ago, I took him and his S.O. home to Jackson Heights in Queens, right over the Willy B. and onto the BQE before briefly becoming reacquainted with Northern Boulevard. The other fare was one of my many late-night wait-in-line types, which happens outside of a Midtown box housing professional office drones or a club housing those fortunate enough to have money and time to blow on bottles service on a weeknight. Cruising the streets has its advantages since many of my most interesting fares were found in the middle of nothing during a time where nothing seemed possible. It can also be extremely hypnotic once the familiar pattern of hitting the proverbial and actual cruise control kick in and the City become reduced to a museum best viewed at 30 M.P.H.

The real issue comes in finding people, and I mean people in the sense that they are personalities and not clones of the ones that I picked up earlier in the night, or the week, or even previously past that. I always want to push the edge of what I know, what I learn, what I experience, and what challenges me to the point where I have to re-evaluate my intellectual hierarchy and update it with what I’ve recently taken on. Many of my best fares have been interesting enough to where I completely kept quiet and just let them talk – endlessly, incessantly, and with abandon. One I feel like I’ve already heard what they have to say, they’ve lost me, even if I’m not lost in a physical or metaphorical sense.

Recent census estimates have put the population of the Big Apple at 8.4 million people and according to “The Naked City”, everyone in New York had a story. That quote was famous during a time where New York had not quite yet become the world’s Capital and could actually claim to have grit, toughness, and a setting made for any film noir that wanted to set itself there. This was reflected in the built environment in the cornices, alleys, Belgian block streets, and abodes leftover from pre-consolidation New York could still be found. The world’s tallest building could easily be found in New York but so could Hell’s Kitchen, waterfront piers dominated by Teamsters, and clotheslines behind every tenement that covered the edges of the gilded center of Gotham. There was contrast, clash, and class divides that allowed for anyone and everyone to take part in the land that epitomized the siren emanating from Emma Lazarus’ poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

Over the years, that changed. The zoning revisions of 1961 allowed for bonuses for creating plazas and combined with changes in design, resulted in a place that took the best of international style modernism and replicated it for for the masses while simultaneously dumbing it down. When Lever House and the Seagram Building were first erected, they won accolades for their minimalism replicated on such a fine scale. The design may have been elementary but as Daniel Burnham once stated, “God is in the details”.

And were they ever in those buildings.

Bronze-tinted glass, window-washing equipment built into the mullions, public plazas, perfectly proportioned columns, setbacks, and plazas allowed for the City to open up. Not just when it came to space and flow, but in order. Now, there was room to relax, unwind, see the sun…

…and reflect.

Which is exactly what happened.

Whatever intellectual stimulation was brought upon by the changes in these buildings’ design was outdone by the changes on the physical landscape that resulted from their groundbreaking design. America was triumphant, prosperous, and fully confident in its destiny as much of Europe and Asia lay in ruins but at the same time, it was full of what led to its currently-visible downfall:

Arrogance and hubris.

The atom may have been a proponent for peace but it was the epitome of what the mentality was in the Cold War era – technology over art, rationality over intuition, and economics over aesthetics. We could design whatever we wanted with whatever new materials, style, and engineering would allow but there wasn’t any sense of heart or soul in the end result. Frank Lloyd Wright brought an organic, prairie style of architecture to a nation that had largely found inspiration from the Old Word but at the same time of his death, the country turned to a bunch of modernists from that Old World to produce a language and even a vernacular for the second half of the 20th Century.

What resulted was absolutely devastating.

The 1961 Zoning law allowed for bonuses should a development include space for a public plaza or arcade. More importantly, it allowed for an unlimited rise without setbacks, unlike the Zoning Law of 1916. Buildings erected after that was enacted into law could rise uninterrupted but only after they were reduced to 1/4 of the total base. What was a city of “waterfalls” and “wedding cakes” soon turned into a bunch of shoeboxes with barren, windswept plazas at street level. They may have been great for lunch but they were terrible for street life and amazingly, even worse when it came to to their facade. The reason for this was simple:

Glass.

Masonry was the preferred choice of exterior for so many buildings in Gotham’s history but as technology and design changed, so did the means to express that change. Load-bearing walls were no longer needed as steel became strong enough to fully bear the load of a tower. This was true by the time of the building boom of the 1920’s but it wasn’t after WWII that changes in design and aesthetics caught up with the progress of the underlying engineering.

As copycats proliferated around the City, Seagram and Lever House became less of an anachronistic anomaly and instead, became the standard that no one could possibly measure up to.

But that didn’t stop SOM, Emery Roth and Sons, Yamasaki, and anyone else prominent enough to earn a commission during the Mad Men-era to design their own glass  box on 3, Park, or 6 Ave’s.

By 1970’s, whatever charm lay on the streets of Manhattan’s recently-cleared El’s or grand, landscaped thoroughfare was obliterated in favor of corporate headquarters that were less concerned with civic grandeur and more interested in the bottom line. The people that were housed in these vertical cube farms were increasingly commuting from farther distances and less interested in staying in Manhattan after work. Any proof of this could be seen in their bases, which lacked retail amenities and interaction with the passerby on the street. Worst of all, these skyscrapers ended up turning Manhattan into a fun-house on a scale never seen before.

But there wasn’t anything fun about being trapped in a corporate campus full of mirrored monoliths.

Winston Churchill one said that “We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us”. It should have come as no surprise that a few generations after we started to mass produce our houses, workspaces, meals, and cartoons (Hanna-Barbera, anyone?), that the offspring in the ensuing generations turned out to be mass-produced as well.

And there’s where my typical night comes in.

Too many times, the person getting into my cab is a clone of someone I previously had. I can guess their language, destination, thought pattern, or occupation just based on a few cues that don’t even call for an accompanying neon sign. It’s pathetic on so many levels that I hardly know where to begin in explaining it. For starters, New York was always a place where immigrants came to find themselves and enter into America but increasingly, it was a destination for those seeing extreme wealth at all costs. The division of labor espoused by Adam Smith reached it’s zenith in Gotham at one time as nearly every occupation on Earth could be found somewhere within its confines but increasingly, a service sector and knowledge economy came to dominate, headed by a few select fields that weren’t important on the grand scheme of things but had their literal headquarters somewhere on the island of Manhattan. Most of all, New Yorkers was a place where people clashed – not civilizations on Huntington’s scale but classes. Think Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities (yes, I know it took place in the Bronx) or Gangs of New York for the vibrancy that resulted when various groups were thrust into a social setting that could only have taken place in Gotham.

But Churchill’s quip came to be reality and as the buildings became more square and transparent, so did the people that inhabited them and eventually, their offspring. Nothing bothers me more than getting someone in the back seat that either works 90 hours a week in finance, is perpetually glued to the phone in his/her hand, or can’t speak without sounding like he/she came from the San Fernando Valley and wanted to be a mallrat. Those people are a dime a dozen and drain all the life and vitality out of a metropolis that should be home to 8 million stories – unique, wild, zany, fascinating and ultimately, colorful stories.

But that’s not the case.

Instead, what I come across pales in comparison to what used to be. I’ve had at least a dozen passengers tell me that their Dad, Uncle, or Grandfather drove a Taxi in New York in the 60’s or 70’s, to which I always say the same thing:

“I would have killed to have done it back then.”

No, I’m not the next Son of Sam but I do wish for a City with edge, gruff, grit, a bit of danger, and most of all, characters.

Most nights, I’m the biggest one of those in my ride, and that’s not saying a whole lot!

What bothers me the most now is that too many people are plugged into the outside word to think, reflect, and create on their own and I know this firsthand because I’m partially guilty of this too. What separates me from them (aside from the fact that I’m up front and behind the wheel) is that I do my best to listen, react, and ask when I come into contact with someone new.

For jobs that I come across all the time, it’s just this:

“Do you like it?”

To which I hear, “Not really…”

When I get someone that is a professional wardrobe stylist, a music promoter, or a short story writer, that’s when the fun begins and I feel like I’m in school all over again.

But sadly, those instances are too few and far between.

Onward, I go. I know I’ll spend more nights ahead watching the soulless masses enter my cab one fare at time, taking in news and information from others but offering so little original thought in return. Once in a while, I will get proven wrong and find a moment of joy in the midst of a sea of bland mediocrity and regurgitation of someone else’s ideas and commands. The division of labor is still dynamic enough in an economy this trepid that new positions are still being created at the expense of the masses that have been laid off in the name of downsizing, reorganization, and offshoring. Thankfully, those in the transportation field don’t have much to worry about, as our ilk will continue to enliven the City until robots come along and the trains, buses, and taxis, are fully automated.

While our positions many not be paramount in the grand scheme of things, no one will ever accuse us of ever being carbon copies reflections of those who also hold the same position.

Not that I’ve ever had to worry about that during my time in the Big Apple!

New York Central lightshow - Midtown

New York Central lightshow – Midtown

 

 

 

by

Silenced

This week's issue - Midtown

This week’s issue – Midtown

The Village Voice died today. Or maybe it was yesterday. Hardly anyone noticed because it’s demise had been so gradual, like the whittling away of a once-great public artwork over time as the elements wore it down to a smooth and shapeless veneer.

One of the first things that I did when I got off the Subway alone for the first time in ’94 was buy the Village Voice. Back then, you actually had to pay for it and the amazing thing was, it was worth every damn penny of its cost. It had a reputation for being edgy, uninhibited, groundbreaking, relevant, hip, funny, and just plain different. Porn stars getting their spotlight in the media? Check. Real astrology with sass? Check. The best movie and restaurant reviews in town? Check. Check off having to lug around a guidebook that served as a blueprint for how to plan your next week in the Big Apple as well. Half of the reason I snatched one up was because Stern was running for Governor that year and even though no one gave him a shot to beat Cuomo or Pataki, he was a legitimate Libertarian Candidate and he was given his moment in the sun every week in New York’s edgiest newspaper.

When I grabbed the copy shown above, it was not only a reminder of how things changed since the tail end of the 20th century but a shell of it’s former self as well. Those ads on the back that were the best of their kind to be found anywhere? Gone. Michael Musto’s gut-busting Gossip Column? Also gone as of earlier this year. The award-winning features that redefined bohemian life in the middle of Manhattan, as well as the boundaries of print journalism itself? Replaced by a bunch of news feeds that were in nearly every other free daily paper in this country. At the time that the Village Voice started to transition into a homogenized, slimmer version of its former greatness, I went to school down in Tennessee.

Yes, you read that right.

Even though those years spent in Nashville were nearly for naught, I did enjoy my Wednesday’s on Vanderbilt’s campus when I had some free time at lunch and could read the Nashville Scene as all the sorority girl on campus picked through their salads around me. What struck me was how similar to the Voice this paper was, even though Nashville had almost nothing in common with New York. It was great to see a thriving, local publication that featured the Music City and the arts that people flocked there to partake in but deep down, I had a suspicion that the Voice wasn’t as unique as I would have liked.

Boy, did that turn out to be true.

As I returned back to the northeast and slowly got my act together, a bunch of seemingly innocuous events took place that when combined, spelled the downfall of what was once America’a most radical publication this side of Rolling Stone. First there was this interweb/www-dial-up/modem thingy that everyone was getting into their home. It struck like wildfire, made Al Gore boast like hell wherever he went, and threatened to revolutionize and redefine anything it came in proximity with.

Which naturally, included print media.

Who needed to go places to see what was happening when you could do so from the comfort of your own home? I never subscribed to any newsgroups, listserves, or .alt’s but it was great to get the AP feed from yahoo or the latest sports news and scores from ESPN.com, anywhere and anytime. Guttenberg’s movable type made printing available for the masses but as humanity became more fruitful and multiplied over the globe, a new medium would have to get the word out more efficiently than a simple printing press. While most men were busy looking at porn, I was occupied with information and how much more of it I could soak up between my ears. I easily felt that I would never have written so much if I wasn’t able to take in what others had already published, and codified it into my belief system.

The biggest thing that did the Village Voice in however, was competition. At first, Time Out was only something that was available in London and any newspaper that someone was hawking to commuters on the way to work had a price to pay for it. Within a few years, Time Out New York became the de facto magazine for keeping up with what was going on around town and the two most popular printed dailies were available to anyone who could grab one.

For free.

Free? Really? Nothing in New York was free. Nothing. If it was, there was a catch to it or a survey that had to be filled out or a mailing list one would be put on once personal information was handed over but for over 10 years now, it was possible to get yesterday’s news in your hand without having to download it and print it out at home.

But award-winning journalism, it was not.

That’s not to say that the articles weren’t that good. Some of them were but the vast majority of the headlines and stories were condensed down to little sound bites. While this was good for picking up more news than would have been previously possible, it diminished the value of each one. Like multitasking, each byline had to be squeezed in with a pile of others with the end result being a giant collection of quantities with no lasting value. For in-depth stories that took more than 30 seconds to read, it was increasingly up to magazines like The New Yorker to fill that niche but in the 21st Century, who had time to listen to Malcolm Gladwell and David Denby espouse about the current trends of the day, unless one was highbrow and had the leisure time to polish Eustace Tilly’s hallmark every week?

This left the two publications that served the masses to weather the storm also known as the demise of traditional print media. Both the New York Post and the New York Daily News had their close calls in recent years, with the former nearly ceasing publication in the early ’90’s and the latter stumbling under some tough years under British magnate Robert Maxwell’s oversight. Whether one likes or hates the last of the old-school daily papers, it’s nearly impossible to picture a metropolis with so many stories as New York not having newspapers that are opened up and read like actual books. Tabloids exist for a reason, and that’s to sell themselves. While not as sensationalistic as their counterparts in the U.K., the ones in New York allow the City’s story to be told, rehashed, and even lambasted on a daily basis. Both papers have columnists and sports writers that New Yorkers love and hate but as anyone will vouch for, those feelings incite passion.

And passion is what drives the gears that move society.

The Village Voice lost that a long time ago, long before it also became free and could be found anywhere a box could be placed on the sidewalk. I couldn’t stand some of its headlines, the incessant cursing in the articles, and the blatant disrespect for tradition and values that the paper espoused but even as it stood side-by-side with the countercultural and beat movements it rose up with, it was the voice of an age and time that was so key in the City’s history. Fun City may have come and gone with Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell but the Voice was one of the gifts that that generation bestowed on Gotham, for future generations of New Yorkers to read, ponder, and even learn from. While the journalistic format that the paper adopted will live in for generations, I feel zero attachment for the online publications that have filled the vacuum left behind by its demise. DNAinfo, Gothamist, and even HuffPost NY fill an important void today but they’ll never capture the heart, minds, and even zeitgeist of the times of this information age.

It’s an inevitable shame that the majority of the Baby Boomers will be hitting retirement age in the next few years and soon afterwards will be leaving us en masse. While there’s no stopping that, I find it hard to fathom that the Voice also has to go down along with them.  Publications like the Voice have become so ingrained in the City’s collective unconscious that movies set in the Big Apple have almost always featured a scene or two in which a daily newspaper was prominently featured, as a reminder of how important they were to the image of New York. When the last of those old-school dailies folds, all the voices that had an outlet in them will be silenced, along with those who made their living telling their stories every day.

And who would want to live in a City that couldn’t even properly chronicles its narrative week in and week out for posterity?

by

Bellona

“You think it’s so unlike me
Why did the city change me?
Red sky, my eyes closed
The fire came so slow”

                                                       -“Bellona” – Junior Boys

Metlife Building - Flatiron District

Metlife Building – Flatiron District

“So do you make more money during the day or at night?”

“Well, I’ve never worked a day shift, so I can’t answer that.”

“But you do alright at night, correct?”

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be out here. I’ve always been a night owl and this fits perfectly. Besides, if ya don’t like being out at night, ya shouldn’t be here to begin with. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be at night than in New York.”

It was 10 years ago this month that the City was plunged into darkness in the first blackout to hit the Big Apple since 1977. I wasn’t working in New York or in school at the time, so I heard all of the accounts on AM radio as I stayed in Jersey for the week. I almost expected a repeat of what happened during the “Summer of Sam” but the widespread riots, looting, and panic were largely absent during this time around. Once the power came back on, it was business as usual and even though my beloved Yankees made the World Series that year, there weren’t any reports of the Bronx Burning as the cameras rolled during the games at the Stadium.

Although it’s been a long time since the last electrical failure in the 5 Boroughs, I think it about it all the time during my nights out on the street. Most of us take modern conveniences for granted until they go out, which is certainly true when a train gets stuck underground or rerouted to another station far away from your original destination. I’m guilty of this too, as I love to push myself to extreme when I’m on duty. It’s easy to do until a tire, headlight, or the on board GPS goes out, and I’m at the mercy of Veriphone or the mechanic on duty at the garage.

One of the best things about my shifts are watching the long day’s journey into night, and seeing how everything changes during and after the sunset. No matter the weather or how many times I work a given week, there’s always an adjustment period as the sky darkens and all of the artificial lighting and kicks in. Not only is it harder to find fares on most nights, but a lot more attention has to be paid to the surrounds as the Taxi is in motion.

For me, it goes a bit deeper than that. Not only do the people and locating those who wish to hail change, but the way that things look and appear also change. Construction sites are barren during the overnight hours unless the temporary lighting stays on but during the day, I will round a corner and see 6-8 floors added onto a building since the last time I was able to check its progress. The lights of Times Square can be seen for blocks away, as the city’s outdoor mall for tourists turns into the set of Blade Runner for those who stick around after shopping and eating at chains that can be found back at home. Because the streets themselves are so clogged, the view down them hardly changes, but that’s not the case throughout most of the rest of the City. It’s amazing to see how the areas around the transit hubs look totally different when the people are gone, and the view and vistas open up down the avenues.

From the top of the Chrysler Building to the view down an industrial street in Bushwick, it’s the way the City looks at night that gets me through the trails and tribulations of my job. Even when 99% of my fares are great, I can stew over the 1% that treated me like a peon, a pawn, a robot, or just inhumanely. Every job I ever had featured at least one person who pushed me around the hell of it, even if it was unintentional. This is the first one where I call the shots and the only person who pushes myself, is myself with the upside being that no one sees me at my worst, after one of the fares that changes your life or demeans me for no reason walks out, leaving me wondering what just happened.

That rarely happens however, and for every moment that nearly leaves me in tears, there are scores that make me cry because they are so fleeting and temporary, and I wish I could hold onto them for the times when the joy in life seems to be lacking. The last month or so has thankfully has seen more than their fair share of those, as the near-perfect nights have led to several instances of me pulling the Taxi over and feeling the breeze as I explore a part of an outer Borough that I rarely get to.

I should be past this stage in my life, as my birthday next week has once again reminded me. When I was younger, everyone said that I would stop staying out so late and settle down when I got older. Since so many of my fares always seem to guess my age incorrectly and think that I’m just as young as they are, especially the drunken trust fund-baby twentysomethings that I take home on the weekends. It’s nice to hear but it also hurts because I know that’s not the case deep down. I don’t think New York is powerful enough to keep me young forever, or to take my physical and emotional aches and pains away as they accumulate over the years. I never got into the City enough when I was growing up, and into the clubs and hot spots that no longer exist except in people’s memories. Making up for lost time now was not what I set out to do when I took this job, but it’s been a pleasant benefit to a job that has consumed much of my waking hours and changed the way I view humanity.

Many people come to the Big Apple bright-eyed and busy tailed, expecting to change the City and hit it big there. Most of them will fail to some extent since few will make it to the top of their chosen profession. What the migrants to the Big Apple fail to realize is that the City *will* change them, even if it’s gradual and over time. It’s not so much an assimilation as it’s a change in mentality that makes anyone become a New Yorker, even if the accent never fully kicks in.

Over the last two years, that’s what’s happened to me, and I know for a fact that I’m all the better for it.

Chrysler Building vista - Bushwick

Chrysler Building vista – Bushwick