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The Lower East Side -From 5/24/09

A Summer's Weekend Day in the Life: Recorded on a Trip Sheet

Before we had the GPS devices that automatically record where we pick-up and drop-off our fares, these trip sheets were for us to write down the locations of each pick-up and drop-off. At the end of the day we had a sheet full of barely legible abbreviations we had written all day long in between green lights et-cetera. I think it has been two years since the GPS tracking was installed, and so from that point on, We've had a lot of spare room on these sheets for notes and scribbles. All we need to write down now is our credit card transactions.

In the summer time, on the weekends, there is a lot of street closures which need to be remembered. This day in particular was a complicated one. If you can make out my messy hand writing, I've written the following:

At noon there was a walk (probably a breast cancer awareness walk) on Seventh Avenue from Central Park to 42nd Street. The walkers then turned west on 42nd, and then south down 9th Avenue, oh but it didn't stop there. The Walkers then turned east on 23rd to Broadway.

That would sound bad enough, closing off multiple major downtown bound Avenues on the west side not only in midtown but also in Chelsea, and also closing major crosstown streets there too.

But then the AIDS Walk was also going on in the Upper West Side. At 8 am to 3pm, the walkers would go on Central Park West from 72nd Street to 110th Street, then proceed west on 110 all the way west to Riverside Drive to 72nd Street and then back to the park, effectively making a big square of streets where traffic might get stuck either inside of or outside of.

But there was more, on Amsterdam Avenue also in the Upper West Side, there was a street fare closing the Avenue abruptly at a small crosstown street forcing all 4 lanes of Amsterdam on to the tiny 77th Street.

Also there was a parade on 5th Avenue on the east side of the park, so we pretty much had to avoid going downtown from the Upper East, or West Sides. Avoid being in the Upper West entirely, and also avoid going downtown on the whole west side, but crosstown couldn't be done without taking a day below 11oth street, or above 23rd street, that's all of Manhattan that we use, except for the little downtown neighborhoods which usually have customers who need to travel uptown.

Oh and also there was the Brooklyn Festival in Park Slope.

On a day like this you don't take any breaks in the early early morning, try to get as much money as possible then, and when it becomes too ridiculous you give up. Actually the miscellaneous walk down 7th Avenue et-cetera was barely existent. There was only a brief moment in time when 23rd Street east bound was completely jammed. So really the strategy was simple, avoid uptown, and work with crosstowners below 23rd.

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Chelsea? -From 5/23/09

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Elmhurst? Queens - From 5/23/09

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Rego Park, Queens - From 5/23/09

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Midtown - From 5/17/09

A little something about the bags for sale on the sidewalk: Bags for sale from a vendor with a table is somewhat legit, you may want to look around, and see how competitive the prices can get. But then, perhaps you ask for a designer brand, a top designer brand, something real top notch. A vendor may have another stash of counterfeit bags imitating the finest purses on the market, and they are buried deep within his inventory cases, maybe, or maybe not.

Most likely the vendors with the most nock-off products will carry them in rolling luggage, and open them up for selling on the street without tables. I only write about this because it's illegal, and therefore it's super cool and sexy to read on a blog because it's all taboo and stuff. Personally I have no problem with counterfeit production and sale of top designer labels because all too often the authentic product is made in poor quality with poor working conditions, and just because a fancy name brand is stuck on it a purse fetches a ridiculous price up on Madison and 5th Avenues. The nock-offs are keeping the designers honest in my opinion; they are a bold statement to the big designers that a purse can be made by anyone, and no purse should hold such an elite price.

This summer to add insult to injury with the sub-par economy, as each month passed closer to the fall the police chased down more and more street vendors on Canal Street in Chinatown. And just recently I noticed that many of the remaining people selling the counterfeits out of luggage bags moved up to the Times Square District, and are now peddling their wares up there. Now of course there are still secret rooms that sales people will direct tourists to in Chinatown filled with Gucci name tags et-cetera, but the easy to spot sellers with the rolling luggage are now up around Times Square.

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Upper East Side - From 5/17/09

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Hell's Kitchen - From 5/17/09

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Long Island City, Queens -From 5/16/09

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Upper East Side (Metropolitan Museum of Art) - From 5/12/09

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Greenwich Village - From 5/12/09

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Flatiron District -From 5/12/09

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Midtown -From 5/12/09

Today's cabs in slides

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Downtown -From 5/12/09

Jetta TDI Wagon!!

Just a few days ago I was thinking about the alternative taxi choices. If a driver does decide to buy their cab the decisions can be daunting. While saving half your daily gas costs when buying a hybrid or diesel, questions still come quickly about weather these smaller cars can do everything that the Crown Victoria can.

Major sticking points:

• Durability
• Trunk space
• Passenger space
• Safety

Ford has supposedly proven itself durable, and if not that at least it is cheap to fix. On the other hand a hybrid engine might cost more to fix, and so would a diesel, but the money saved in gasoline might outweigh the maintenance. The Ford Escape is top heavy, a small S.U.V. that may tip over in strong evasive maneuvers. It's trunk space is pretty good, preferred by hotels over the Crown Victoria, but the legroom for the passengers is debatable. Looking at all the hybrid choices in cars, the trunk room is a joke, space is cut practically in half. The only hybrid taxi choice that seems to provide lots of trunk space and passenger space is the Toyota Highlander, a medium size S.U.V. with some intimidating bulges on the exterior design. The Problem with the Highlander though, is it's size may lead it into lots of tings and dings, bruises, and so on. The gas Mileage on it is great in comparison to the Crown Victoria, but for the great price of more than $40,000, you'd expect more.

So I think about the Volkswagen Jetta Diesel. The car is the size of a Toyota Corolla, but the trunk space is surprisingly large. The major benefit of Diesel is it doesn't take up valuable trunk space, and since diesel is not a new technology the chances are greater for a long lasting vehicle I would think. I fantasized about driving around that great car and spending less than 15 dollars a day on gas, rather than 35. And still, I wondered, would there be enough trunk space? perhaps having less room for passengers wouldn't be such a bad thing, but a larger trunk is absolutely necessary. And just days later, I saw the Jetta Wagon as a taxi.

Fake Taxis

The cars shown in this slide set, are either private cars, undercover police cars, or they play a roll in movies or television. The only cab that could be deemed real is the cash cab van as it does have a real medallion, however it never takes people out of Manhattan, and it is unlikely that it picks up people at random without a pre-screening:

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Chinatown -From 5/12/09

Movie Taxis

I'm not sure why, but for some reason the big budget movies pay for a string of taxicab impersonators to play their role in New York Movies.

Here they were parked along 17th Street in Chelsea waiting for their make up, i.e. the roof lights weren't added to the cabs yet. as we go through the line up we can see the flaws that separate these Crown Victoria's from the real medallion yellow cabs of New York City.

None of the cabs had the extended wheelbase. Currently all Crown Victoria taxis in New York City have longer rear legroom and a longer rear door. This car in particular had a painted side view mirror as well, which is extremely rare on an actual New York City cab. The chrome around the door handles also is a sign that this cab is a little off and needs to study up a bit on it's role.

One big thing is that all these cabs have matching medallion numbers, which is very strange. Perhaps they did this to maintain continuity between cabs so one cab can replace another cab during shots of a single taxi. But still when they need a shot of all the cabs it will look silly, perhaps this problem is too small to notice. Also the cab on the right has a painted side mirror and body colored trim around the rear light.

And these are way off. Medallion yellow cabs in New York City can only be as much as 5 years old. These cars are from the late 90's. We'll stop there. That concludes this geeky post.

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SoHo -From 5/10/09

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Greenwich Village -From 5/10/09

I picture Bob Dylan walking this street and peering up at each individual window 40 years ago. Perhaps this was the street he walked arm and arm with his girlfriend, who may have been Joni Mitchell, but I'm not very good at remembering things correctly. Either way, Café Wa is around the corner, the place where Dylan came up in the music world.

2010 Prius taxi

I forgot the auto-focus was off, but you get the gist. There are already a handful of the brand-new 2010 Prius' out on the city streets. Supposedly they have more people room, trunk space, and significantly better gas mileage and better performance. The cars are all around bigger than the previous Prius. Looking at the design change it's very noticeable if you pay close attention. It looks like an exaggeration of it's previous self. It's as if the Toyota Prius went to a cartoon caricature artist and based on the funny looking drawing it received of itself, The Prius went forward with it's 2010 make over.

So I apologize for not focusing, but this picture will have to do until I get a better capture. The wheels look bigger too, a huge plus for taxi drivers, less chance for a tire problem.

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Fort Greene, Brooklyn -From 5/10/09