9/22-9/23: 3

1. Midtown, Manhattan

2. Downtown, Manhattan

3. Greenwich Village, Manhattan

4. Greenpoint, Brooklyn

5. Greenpoint, Brooklyn

9/22-9/23: 2 of 3

1. Queens Plaza, Queens

2. Cruise Ship Terminal, Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan

3. Pulaski Skyway, New Jersey

4 Kips Bay, Manhattan

9/22-9/23: set 1 of 3

Images 1 and 2 - Downtown, Manhattan

Image 3 - Times Square, Manhattan

Image 4 - SoHo, Manhattan

On duty

Woohoo, I just called the garage, and I'm coming in tomorrow. Now I just need to stay awake 'till 2pm to be ready for an early morning.

noir

1. Queens-Borough Bridge  A.K.A. 59th Street Bridge,  Long Island City, Queens

2. Bushwick, Brooklyn

shot in winter 06'

J walker's paradise

Herald Square

sabbatical explained part 4

part 1
part 2
part 3

Upon arriving at the garage Lenny walked over,

Lenny “So what’s the whole story?” He asked in a calm manner, displaying a patience that he doesn’t usually give others.

Me “As my passenger got out of the car, I didn’t check to see if the door was closed, and I think I must have run over her foot with the rear right wheel.”

Lenny rolls his eyes, and proceeds with further questions, “So what happened my friend, is she okay?”

Me “Well the ambulance came but she refused the ambulance.”

Lenny “Oh this is bad, she got in an ambulance?” eyes wide and examining the car.

Me “No, no she refused the ambulance. She walked away.”

Lenny “Oh.. well that’s good.”

Me “Uh, this is totally unrelated to the incident, but the right headlight is loose.”
Lenny, “What? She knocked the headlight loose when you ran her over?”

Me, “No, no I got it that way, I noticed the headlight a few hours before this all happened.”

Lenny shakes his head in disbelief. He starts to walk away as I receive a phone call. A man who I tried desperately to call ten or more times during the day, was finally calling me back to retrieve his expensive phone. We worked out a location for me to drop off the phone, where his doorman would pick up the phone and compensate me with some cash.

“Hey Lenny, At least I’m not completely awful today, I’m returning this guy’s cell phone.” I hold up the phone triumphantly.

“Give me that,” Lenny barks

“No”

“You are sick man, totally sick in the head, running over a woman and still smiling because you are returning a phone, give me that so I can stomp it and crush it to little tiny pieces.” The smile wipes off my face and Lenny strolls away, clearly with miles and miles of taxi driving taking a toll on his patience and attitude. The garage likes to give their favorite cabbies jobs when they’ve been around long enough, and would rather stay out of the driver seat.

I didn’t want to leave the garage on such a sour note, so after I wrote up my brief account of the accident for the lawyers to review later, I decided to talk to the gasman. I said goodbye to Tim, a new regular dispatcher at the window who is around my age,

“See you around I guess, hopefully I’ll be back”

“Well, yeah hopefully,” he didn’t seem very certain I’d return.

And I asked the gasman if I was the worst taxi driver this garage has seen.

“No, no, not at all. Last year one of our drivers killed a man on Queens Boulevard.” Queens Boulevard is a political issue for all Queens’s residents, going by the alias ‘Boulevard of Death’. It has 3 main lanes going west, and 3 other main lanes going east, in addition to small service roads paralleling, which aren’t so small either. With long gaps between traffic lights, cars will easily approach 50 miles per hour, and many a pedestrian gets struck crossing as many as 12 lanes I think.

“Well…” I tried to sound sympathetic to the many victims of this Boulevard, but unsuccessfully, “I’d like to say that was good to hear, but…”

Gasman “No, no, it’s never good to hear.”

I overheard another cabbie joke around saying he’d have just left before the police came referring to my situation that day. Hopefully he wasn’t serious.

I took the subway back into Manhattan knowing I’d be looking for something else career wise. It was time to move on, but making such assertions, and actually doing something progressive or two things of a different ilk.

I returned the phone to the doorman, he asked me if I was a cabbie, and gave me an envelope with a, ‘thank you’, and 45 dollars cash. I told the two doormen that taxi driving wasn’t worth it, that they had a good thing going with their job, taxi driving is way too stressful, I told them. I decided to keep the three condom packets left in the cab next to the phone, eventually of course I threw them away, nothing is more disgusting to me then thinking about other people’s sex lives.

Beyoncé on the bus

Upper West Side Manhattan

shot in winter of 2006

part 3 sabbatical explained

part 1 of 3 sabbatical explained
part 2 of 3 sabbatical explained
Despite seeming like a terrible accident at first, my incident with the passenger was cleared up in somewhat good time for New York standards. While the police stood with me, the officer scolded a BMW driver with New Jersey plates, for talking on the phone while driving. The police filled out the remaining pieces of the accident report sitting in the squad car, the woman whose foot got run over walked away, the ambulance, fire truck, rookie cops, and the bigger squad car had all left.

The “Doctor” who was one of the first witnesses, came up to me and told me that she (the one who got her foot run over) was ok, if I was concerned. I sighed a small sigh and in true cabbie fashion, I asked him if he would attest to her condition being okay and sign my trip sheet. Unfortunately he wouldn’t surrender his opinion for the record.

The officer gave me a receipt slip, which I could turn in to the station later in the week for a 10-dollar copy of the full police report. He also was nice enough to give my passenger’s name and phone number on the backside, if I felt so inclined to call her. I’d rather keep the past as a blip in my rear view, and continue feeling adequate that I did everything I could.

After all was said and done, my time for the shift was in its last hour, not that it mattered, I always return to the garage after an accident, well almost always.

…. More by the end of the day

Peter Cooper Village, Manhattan 06'

Lower East Side, Manhattan

shot jan of 06'

Yet more early work

I'm still not driving the cab, I tried to call a friend of a friend with a taxi of his own, but he seems to be flakier than my cereal. I'm hoping to get a job at a health food store, we'll see if that fills. If all that doesn't pan out, I'm thinking of registering myself as a tour guide. And still there is always cab driving, I love cab driving, but there are so many negatives, sleep deprivation is a big pet peeve of mine.

So here are some more pictures from early 06'





1. Manhattan Bridge

2. Lower East Side, Manhattan

3. Midtown, Manhattan

The other Broadway

Shots from the first fare to Bushwick Brooklyn, january 06'

City caught sleeping.

1. Redhook, Brooklyn

2.Long Island City, Queens

1. Upper-East Side, Manhattan

2. TriBeCa, Manhattan

Shot January 06'

early pics

1. Upper-East Side, Manhattan

2. Gramercy, Manhattan (napping 'till sunrise)

3. The Garage

4. Gramercy, Manhattan

New Header?

Does everyone like my new header, (the photo on the top)? I'm thinking I'll change the photo every week. I thought I might make it smaller, does the large picture size bother anybody? I'm trying to get the border line out, but to no avail.

Snow Blizzard

I found some of these snow pictures, from when I drove during the blizzard in January 2006

Strike!

Well incase you didn't know, a strike is coming, I'm not much of an inside scoop really, 'cause I'm sitting on my couch already, and I am starting to need a job quick to make ends meet.

To read more on this NYC taxi strike, go to Cabs are for Kissing

The New York Hack wrote an article in the OP-Ed section of the New York Times on the strike, however I don't know which day it was.

I lead you over to another source, since I just don't have the knowledge to give on this subject.