I don't remember Oscar having a Taxi... but, this proves my memory is shot

https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Sesame_Street

Saul Leiter, New York City streets in color

Saul Leiter took photos every day for 60 years in New York’s East Village, capturing daily life in the neighborhood where he lived for his entire adult life. Leiter was a postwar pioneer in color photography, and when he died, in 2013, he left behind at least 40,000 color slides, 15,000 black-and-white prints, and 40,000 black-and-white negatives

https://www.pressreader.com/usa/the-guardian-usa/20240205/282011857255750

https://airmail.news/arts-intel/events/saul-leiter-an-unfinished-world

https://independent-photo.com/news/the-unseen-saul-leiter/

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/saul-lieter/index.html

https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/soleitercocacola.jpg

As of March 2025, thirteen of London’s historic green cabmen’s shelters remain. These shelters, originally established between 1875 and 1950 to provide cab drivers with a place to rest and refresh

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=658955643341920&set=a.254774773760011

hailing a cab

 https://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/2025/03/hailing-that-cab.html

Jerry Schatzberg, Carmen Exits Taxi 1959

https://www.1stdibs.com/art/photography/portrait-photography/jerry-schatzberg-jerry-schatzberg-carmen-exits-taxi/id-a_5168851/

Anne St. Marie, Pushing Man in Cab, 1958 - Jerry Schatzberg

 

https://www.1stdibs.com/art/photography/portrait-photography/jerry-schatzberg-anne-st-marie-pushing-man-cab-1958-jerry-schatzberg/id-a_6861522/#zoomModalOpen

Zoox, an all-electric, fully autonomous ride-hail vehicle, is on the job and on the city streets of Las Vegas

one of the many toaster shaped taxis I saw at CES 2023 https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2023/01/i-dont-think-that-all-these-ridiculous.html

does anyone believe the production Tesla robotaxi is really going to be a 2 door? I'm guessing it's going to be a Model X instead

https://fordauthority.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Tesla-Robotaxi-Press-Photos-Exterior-005-side-front-three-quarters-doors-open.jpeg

https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/10/24267132/tesla-robotaxi-we-robot-autonomous-fsd-elon-musk/archives/2

https://www.standard.net.au/story/8789802/musk-unveils-cybercab-as-focus-shifts-to-automation/

Tesla is reportedly gearing up to launch its much-awaited ‘Robotaxi’ on the lot of Warner Bros Studios in Los Angeles on October 10

 https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/tesla-we-robot-event-launch-robotaxi-what-we-know-9590636/

1920's Citroen taxi, you gotta wonder how that steering worked!

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=875781607909480&set=a.415445867276392

taxi's are very useful as mobile billboards to advertise movies

Sean Penn portrays a New York City taxi driver in a new movie called "Daddio", premiering next month at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The movie takes place in a New York City taxi, on a ride from JFK to Manhattan, capturing a single  conversation.

Originally conceived as a stage play, Daddio boasts a script penned by playwright Christy Hall, who directs.

https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1104621-dakota-johnson-and-sean-penns-new-film-set-inside-taxi-in-nyc

Hall wrote the cabbie character with an abundance of internal paradoxes, so it wasn't difficult for her to realize that Penn's consistent on-screen complexity made him a perfect fit for the role. 

"His immeasurable talent affords him the unique ability to ride that razor's edge that we all have within us, that thin dividing line between our greatest angels and our darkest demons," Hall says. "Our cabbie needed to be both deeply charming and wildly offensive. He is vastly intelligent and shockingly base, highly evolved and stuck in his own era, has a hardened exterior and also a tender heart. I don't know anyone else in the world who could so effortlessly allow all these truths to co-exist within one unforgettable character."

https://ew.com/movies/sean-penn-dakota-johnson-daddio-first-look

Sean Penn doesn't need any intro here, but, a refresher on his career isn't out of order, he is a two-time Academy winning actor, filmmaker, and author who has frequently championed charity and volunteerism in disasters such as Katrina, and the catastrophic Haiti earthquake, and has been to Ukraine numerous times over the last two years, co-directing SUPERPOWER, a documentary capturing the “David and Goliath” struggle between President Zelensky’s Ukraine and Putin. 

As a filmmaker, Penn’s been  the Academy Award nominated, as an actor, Penn has been nominated five times for the Academy for Best Actor winning twice for MYSTIC RIVER and MILK. 

https://brilliantminds.co/speaker/2023-sean-penn/

https://www.instagram.com/teatime.pictures/

https://collider.com/daddio-movie-images-dakota-johnson-sean-penn/

https://deadline.com/2023/08/sean-penn-dakota-johnson-daddio-sag-aftra-interim-agreement-festivals-1235519951/

the Detroit Riots of 1967 displaced 388 families and destroyed 412 buildings beyond repair, more than 2,500 businesses were damaged or looted, and 43 people were killed. It began with a Blind Pig (I do not remember this ever being mentioned in my Michigan public school history, in any grade or class)

https://www.chaldeannews.com/2023-content/2023/7/1/the-1967-riots-long-shadow-on-detroit-and-its-chaldean-community

In the midnight hours of July 23, 1967, a Detroit police raid on an unlicensed after-hours bar,The Blind Pig, a black, unlicensed, late-night drinking club where locals were celebrating the return of two soldiers from Vietnam, turned violent, and an uprising, fueled by reports of police brutality and driven by underlying conditions including segregated housing and schools and rising black unemployment, began.

By the time the riots ended four days later by 7,000 National Guard and U.S. Army troops, 43 people were dead, 342 injured, and nearly 1,400 buildings had been burned.

Hatred of the police was widespread among the poor in Detroit, especially the black poor. The vast majority of cops were white and the police excelled at recruiting and promoting the most bigoted (so nothing really has changed).

Officers routinely stopped and searched young men and women—and were not afraid to lash out if anyone didn’t know their place. Even old black men were routinely addressed by police as “Boy”.

Small scale disturbances were common, so top cops expected things at the Blind Pig to calm down as the morning wore on. But by afternoon buildings were ablaze and smoke billowed across the city.

Evening saw rioting spread and the overwhelmed Detroit police call in reinforcements from Michigan State and Wayne County. Hundreds of white officers carrying shotguns and long-held resentments against the black poor were off the leash

On Sunday the looting became more strategic. As the dam of anger broke, the greatest targets became the pawn shops which wound up yielding 2,498 rifles and 38 handguns. 

By Tuesday evening the third and final phase of the riot, sniping. Only this time, instead of civilian targets like grocery stores, now the authorities were to draw the ire of the rioters. 

Within a 50 minute period around midnight, nine different police and fire stations would be under fire by mad snipers who were venting their anger against the most visible symbol of the white power structure, the police. http://www.detroits-great-rebellion.com/Snipers.html

The president used the Insurrection Act of 1807 and gave the order to send in troops. The US Army’s 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were among those who had recently returned from the Vietnam War. Now they were on streets of one of the US’s greatest cities. 

Tanks and armored cars took up positions, on occasion firing shells into homes suspected of harboring shooters. But compared to the police, the troops were relatively restrained.

notice that the above Jeep has crossed revolvers as nose art

there were actual tanks from the 101st Airborne during the riot and one even shot the steeple off a church

From the mid-1950s onwards unemployment for black people soared to double the national average.

Thousands of black families lived in permanent poverty, depending on welfare payments for survival. Long after formal segregation ended, black people in Northern cities were everywhere faced with white authority—in the schools, in the welfare departments, and especially the police. 

A study of black people in Los Angeles after the Watts riots of 1965 showed that large percentages had been subject to or witnessed police mistreatment. One fifth had been unnecessarily stopped and searched, two fifths had seen it happen to others. 

How could leading Democrat politicians support black rights in the South but ignore racist policing, prejudicial hiring and firing, and appalling housing in the ghettos of the North? (nothing has changed)

https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/city-on-fire-12-powerful-photos-from-the-1967-detroit-riot/Slideshow/29234487

https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/remembering-detroits-1967-summer-of-civil-unrest/Slideshow/33362491

https://www.metrotimes.com/news/why-are-we-still-obsessed-with-1967-3498214

https://socialistworker.co.uk/features/detroit-1967-five-days-of-riots-against-the-cops-when-the-motorcity-was-burning/

https://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/2017/07/150_historic_photos_from_the_d.html

https://timeline.com/these-striking-color-photos-of-the-long-hot-summer-riots-show-the-full-spectrum-of-the-violence-ceb9e35ef0ca

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/disturbing-pictures-from-the-detroit-riots-of-1967

You can read first hand accounts and recollections of the week of the riots at 

https://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthread.php?22354-1967-Remembered/page3

Detroit wasn't the first of the riots in the summer of 1967, and it was far from the last. Buffalo, New York, and Newark, New Jersey, preceded it

K Bigelow who famously made Hurt Locker, made a movie "Detroit" about the 67 Riots

I think it's available on Hulu

The new York Taxi Commission wants to do away with the bullet-resistant partitions in Taxis which were implemented more than two decades ago after a string of cab driver murders.

 https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-livery-cab-partition-driver-safety-murders-crime-tlc-20230729-idrku5yczbfhvii3nr6girl5gy-story.html

I found a gallery of WW2 civilian efforts, like the scrap drives, victory gardens, etc

Dorothy Lamour in Boston for war bond drive

Victory Garden on a garage

but I'd never learned (until this moment) that cities changed their parks to Victory Gardens! That was not mentioned in the history books I had in high school

all the iron fences were dismantled, even at the state house, and the Governor took the time to make a photo op

shows how Boston Commons looked after the fences were removed

I added these to illustrate the other unknown efforts of the civilians to use every resource to add to the scrap drives... in ways I've never learned of before

and this one surprised me the most, a Checker Taxi fleet parked and the tires removed for the rubber to get used by the military

and I'd never heard of the license plate recycling effort

and I think this is extremely interesting, one of 17 War of 1812 cannons, used as bollards and street edging at the Boston Navy Yard, pulled out and turned in for WW2 scrap. Wow. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/albums/72157627973175543/page5

New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission Chairman wanted to know what life on the road is like for cabbies, so he can make more informed decisions for the industry, so he went and became a licensed taxi driver

This is what a leader looks like. Feet in the muck, same as the people he is in charge of. I love it. 

he hopes to take 100 trips a year as a way of learning firsthand what drivers encounter daily, whether that’s dealing with traffic and customers, or struggling to find designated spots where they can park and take bathroom breaks

“With this experience, I’ll be able to go to [the Transportation Department] and say, ‘Hey, look, I was in the shoes of our drivers and they are 100% right that they cannot find that relief stand that is open without a car blocking it,” he said.

“I’m the lead of the agency that regulates,” he said. “But I want to regulate from a point of view where I use experience.”

A TLC spokesperson said Do was cleared by the city’s Conflict of Interests Board to obtain the license, but he is bound by several rules: He’s not immune from disciplinary measures if a passenger files a complaint against him; and he cannot collect fares or tips.

So, any passenger who happens to hail his cab — which initially will be a yellow taxi in the TLC fleet — will get a free ride.

He is hitting the pavement at a chaotic time for cabbies; the number of yellow taxis on city streets climbed back to 7,791 in December 2022 from a low of 2,191 in April 2020.

 In March 2020, just before the pandemic effectively shuttered the city, there were 11,313 yellow taxis on the streets.  

https://www.thecity.nyc/2023/3/9/23631339/undercover-taxi-commisioner-hack-license