Category: Taxi
The Couple in the Backseat
On a regular Tuesday afternoon, when Midtown is usually jammed with delivery trucks double-parked, cabbies leaning on their horns, and pedestrians playing Frogger with the crosswalk. I had just dropped off a finance guy near Bryant Park when a young couple flagged me down on Lexington. They looked freshly married, not in tux and gown,…
Read More
What the City Tells Me at 3AM
When it’s 3 am in New York City, everything changes here. The cab horns fade, the sirens quiet down. The streetlights seem to blink lower. It’s in this hour, this strange, heavy silence, that I feel most connected to the city. Like we both are tired, wandering, and awake, pretending everything is fine. That’s when…
Read More
Meter Running, Mind Wandering
Most of the time, people forget I’m there when they step into my cab. And that’s fine. I’m not here to be remembered forever. I’m only here to help them get from one point to another with the least amount of stress and as many green lights as possible. But while they are checking texts…
Read More
The Yellow Light Never Lasts
When you are driving a yellow cab in New York, you learn to live in the between. The light turns green, you go. The light turns red, you wait. But the yellow? That’s the moment you live for, that brief, pulsing second between decision and instinct. Go or stop. Risk the ticket or play it…
Read More
Nobody Notices the Driver
In a city like this, you could vanish in plain sight and no one would even blink. That’s what being a taxi driver feels like most days: invisible. I open the door, you climb in and settle down. For the following few blocks, I’m just part of the background noise in your life. A voice…
Read More
The Rearview Mirror Doesn’t Lie
Looking at the way a person sits in the back seat, you can tell a lot about them. Some slowly slide in, headphones on and eyes glued to phones; they usually prefer silence. Others lean forward the moment the door shuts, and already, we are old friends. And then there are the ones who don’t…
Read More
My Office Has No Walls
Where I work, it doesn’t have cubicles or Zoom meets. It has four wheels, a meter and a city that never sits still ever. I’m a taxi driver in New York City, not one of those black cars or shared rides, just a regular yellow cab, the kind that’s been part of the city longer…
Read More
A Night Behind the Wheel in NYC
Everyone thinks that being a taxi driver, if I know all the streets, it helps with everything. Sure, yeah, it does help, but what’s more helpful is knowing people. Trust me, after a decade behind the wheel, you get a front row seat to human nature in all of its raw and most unfiltered forms.…
Read More
Confessions of a New York City Taxi Driver
It’s almost 4:30 am. The city that never sleeps, does in fact sleep, but not for all of us here. My day, or how I begin my work, starts with a strong cup of coffee from the bodega on 8th. That’s where I am writing this from. Streets are quieter, no horns, no chaos, just…
Read More