Using information derived from research and interviews with cab drivers, Vidich has written a basic work on New York City cab drivers (hacks) that also provides passengers (fares) with a survival manual. Cab drivers are quoted by newspaper columnists, politicians, and at dinner parties; yet a hard look at the profession and its role in the transportation system of the city has been completely lacking. Vidich brings out in clear language the conflicts between the cab driver's position as a dispenser of a public service and his needs as a working person subjected to violence and pressure. It is difficult to imagine a more enjoyable introduction to an industry whose members are a folk tradition. At the same time, this book provides insight into the history and sociology of an important urban institution. It is a book about cab drivers everywhere; and cab drivers and fares in all cities have a new handbook in this volume

Driving a cab for more than 30 years Gene Salomon has collected a remarkable selection of stories. He shares the very best in this unforgettable memoir.

Using information derived from research and interviews with cab drivers, Vidich has written a basic work on New York City cab drivers (hacks) that also provides passengers (fares) with a survival manual. Cab drivers are quoted by newspaper columnists, politicians, and at dinner parties; yet a hard look at the profession and its role in the transportation system of the city has been completely lacking. Vidich brings out in clear language the conflicts between the cab driver's position as a dispenser of a public service and his needs as a working person subjected to violence and pressure. It is difficult to imagine a more enjoyable introduction to an industry whose members are a folk tradition. At the same time, this book provides insight into the history and sociology of an important urban institution. It is a book about cab drivers everywhere; and cab drivers and fares in all cities have a new handbook in this volume.

Using information derived from research and interviews with cab drivers, Vidich has written a basic work on New York City cab drivers (hacks) that also provides passengers (fares) with a survival manual. Cab drivers are quoted by newspaper columnists, politicians, and at dinner parties; yet a hard look at the profession and its role in the transportation system of the city has been completely lacking. Vidich brings out in clear language the conflicts between the cab driver's position as a dispenser of a public service and his needs as a working person subjected to violence and pressure. It is difficult to imagine a more enjoyable introduction to an industry whose members are a folk tradition. At the same time, this book provides insight into the history and sociology of an important urban institution. It is a book about cab drivers everywhere; and cab drivers and fares in all cities have a new handbook in this volume.

Why the cabdriver is the real victim of the false promises of Uber and the gig economy. 2007 Noteworthy Book in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics, Princeton University Industrial Relations Section Hailed in its first edition as a classic study of New York City's history and people, Graham Russell Gao Hodges's Taxi! is a remarkable evocation of the forgotten history of the taxi driver. This deftly woven narrative captures the spirit of New York City cabdrivers and their hardscrabble struggle to capture a piece of the American dream. From labor unrest and racial strife to ruthless competition and political machinations, Hodges recounts this history through contemporary news accounts, Hollywood films, and the words of the cabbies themselves. A new preface recalls the author's five years of hacking in New York City in the early 1970s, and a new concluding chapter explores the rise of app-based ridesharing services with the arrival of companies like Uber and Lyft. Sharply criticizing the use of the independent contractor model that is the cornerstone of Uber and the gig economy, Hodges argues that the explosion of for-hire vehicles in Manhattan reversed decades of environmental anti-congestion efforts. He calls for a return to the careful regulations that governed taxicabs for decades and provided a modest yet secure living for cabbies. Whether or not you've ever hailed a cab on Broadway, Taxi! provides a fascinating perspective on New York's most colorful emissaries.

Drawing on conversations with the drivers themselves, "Taxi!" details both the pressures and triumphs of life behind the wheel. Mathew reveals in this highly readable, fast-paced survey of New York's taxi business, that just about everything has been dramatically altered except the yellow paint.

From the passenger seat of Sean Singer’s taxicab, we witness New York’s streets livid and languid with story and contemplation that give us awareness and aliveness with each trip across the asphalt and pavement. Laced within each fare is an illumination of humanity’s intimate music, of the poet’s inner journey—a signaling at each crossroad of our frailty and effervescence. This is a guidebook toward a soundscape of higher meaning, with the gridded Manhattan streets as a scoring field. Jump in the back and dig the silence between the notes that count the most in each unique moment this poet brings to the page. “Sean Singer’s radiant and challenging body of work involves, much like Whitman’s, nothing less than the ongoing interrogation of what a poem is. In this way his books are startlingly alive... I love in this work the sense that I am the grateful recipient of Singer’s jazzy curation as I move from page to page. Today in the Taxi is threaded through with quotes from Kafka, facts about jazz musicians, musings from various thinkers, from a Cathar fragment to Martin Buber to Arthur Eddington to an anonymous comedian. The taxi is at once a real taxi and the microcosm of a world—at times the speaker seems almost like Charon ferrying his passengers, as the nameless from all walks and stages of life step in and out his taxi. I am reminded of Calvino’s Invisible Cities, of Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn... Today in the Taxi is intricate, plain, suggestive, deeply respectful of the reader, and utterly absorbing. Like Honey and Smoke before it, which was one of the best poetry books of the last decade, this is work of the highest order.” —Laurie Sheck