Public Project
Taxi: Journey Through My Windows (1977-1987)
SUNDAY MORNING. My shift starts at 5:00 a.m. I’m hoping for a good cab— sometimes you get a real piece of junk. That’s the way it is when you don’t have a steady cab. You lease one for $60 per 12-hour shift, plus gas. I take several minutes to check out the cab— I’ll be in this yellow box all day.
I pull out of the garage, and the race begins— looking for fares. I know that the after-hours clubs might be jumping, so I cruise by the Hellfire, an S&M club notorious for its wild stage acts. I pull up to the door and wait for a passenger.
A fare approaches. She is wearing a cabaret outfit in high heels and asks, “Will you take me to Brooklyn?” “Where in Brooklyn?” I respond. “Bushwick, take the Williamsburg Bridge,” she says. I hit the meter, and we’re on our way. Driving down Broadway, I ask my fare how her night performing was—did she make money? She nods and says, “It was OK... but you know it’s a bitch to make living these days.” We talk for a bit and then I ask if I can take her photograph. I tell her that I’m working on a book. We talk a little more; finally we arrive at a tenement on Chauncey Street. She pays the fare, plus a tip. As I begin cruising back over the bridge to Manhattan the sun is coming up over the city, a wonderful view. I slow down to take a quick photo. I deeply appreciate the feelings of peace and isolation. In a few hours the streets will be flourishing with bumper-to-bumper traffic.
I rush back to the City to hustle up a few more fares before the clubs close. I get on the taxi line for the Mineshaft, another S&M club. A fare jumps in—“89th Street and Park Avenue,” he says. As we begin to get closer to his Upper East Side destination, I glance in my rearview mirror; he is changing out of his leather outfit (with whip and boots) into a pair of khakis, oxford shirt, and penny loafers. By the time we arrive at his Park Avenue apartment building, he’s transformed into a Wall Street banker. The doorman greets him. I say to myself, “There are eight million stories in the Naked City; this has been one of them.”
As the other half of the city starts to wake, I cruise by Penn Station for the working commuters. A Black woman gets in. “Where to lady?” I ask. “89th Street and East End Avenue please,” she replies in a sweet voice. I ask her what she does for a living; she tells me she is domestic worker cleaning houses for people. “Isn’t it some- thing how many people must work so hard? That’s life I guess,” she says. I think it is true that every cab driver has compassion for workers like her that do hard jobs. Cruising back downtown on Second Avenue. I hope to get a fare to the airport, but an old couple flags me down. I get out to help them in; old people are slow, so you must have patience. Suddenly, they fascinate me. I ask how long they have been married. “Forty years,” the husband says. I ask how they’ve managed to live together so long, because lots of marriages do not last that long. They both said “love and compromise” was their belief.
Later, cruising up Broadway a man jumps in. He wants to go to Teaneck, New Jersey. I say, “That is double the meter plus tolls.” He begins rapping to me, “You know brother-man, money is the key. It’ll make you happy, it gives you power and without it you are lost.” I reply, “I hear that.” I do not agree, but it is funny how many people buy into it. Back in Manhattan, I stop to see how much I have made. I count $120. To make a decent wage, I must hustle more fares in the few hours left before my shift ends. The dispatcher dislikes it when I bring in the cab late, for there waits another driver for the night shift. I wonder what kind of fares he will meet. — Joseph Rodriguez, June 1986
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