Baltic & Bond
Abe Mittleman, of NYC Taxi News, recounts a personal experience during his time as a NYC taxi driver in 1985, ahead of a proposal to remove mandatory partitions and camera systems in livery cars
**Republished with permission**
Baltic & Bond
By Abe Mittleman (NYC Taxi News)
It was a warm summer afternoon day in August. The year was 1985. The sun was shining bright. I was having a rather busy day in my NYC Taxi. It was one fare after another with very little time in between dropping off one fare and finding another.
Park Avenue in Manhattan is a two way traffic street. A concrete island separates the traffic going uptown and downtown. I dropped off a passenger on the downtown traffic side between 33rd and 34th street. After paying for the ride, my passenger opened the door to exit and before the door was closed two men were sitting in the back seat.
The taxi I was driving did not have a partition that protects the driver. I can’t explain why. But, my intuition was telling me that these two men may be trouble. I thought to myself, “well you have had this feeling many times in the past and all turned out well, so why worry?”
One of the men in my taxi asked me to take them to the corner of Baltic Street and Bond Street in Brooklyn. This would be, depending on traffic, about a 20 to 30 minute ride down the FDR Drive and over the Brooklyn Bridge. The location was only a block or two from the exit of the bridge.
When we reached the destination, I noticed that there were many people old and young on the street. There was a large housing development located there. Nevertheless, the next thing that would happen was one of the men in the back seat reached over with his arm and held me down by my throat, while with his hand on the other arm put a sharp object on the side of my neck. I need not wonder anymore. My intuition was real and true.
“GIVE ME THE MONEY” said this man. I reached into my shirt pocket and gave him all of my earnings for that day and said “DON’T HURT ME.” He took the money and then ordered me out of the taxi. The two men left me standing on the street while they rode away with my vehicle.
I stood there shocked! I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out one penny. I was confused. I have no money for transportation. I have no way for communication. These were the first thoughts that ran through my head. Then all of a sudden a tow truck pulled up to me. The driver said. “GET IN, WE SAW THE ENTIRE THING, MY BUDDY IS CHASING THEM.”
Still, in shock, I climbed into the tow truck. We rode around for about twenty minutes unable to locate the other vehicle. I then asked the tow truck driver to take me to the nearest police station. He dropped me off at the police station. When I walked in and told them why I was there, one of the officers said out loud “THE TAXI DRIVER IS HERE.”
What happened was when the criminals realized they were being chased, they abandoned the taxi still running with the keys in it. The police were alerted and while I was at the station, they were driving the taxi to the police station. I would soon have my taxi back. The police asked me to look at mug shots. I agreed, but I told them I didn’t get a good enough look to positively identify them. They said I would have to be positive. So, that ended that.
Now, here is the best part of the story. I hadn’t up to this point remembered that I had a carry bag on the front seat that I always take with me. At that time I was responsible for collecting money from the drivers of two taxis that my partners and I were running. I had in my carry bag close to $900 in cash. I was given the keys and then as I approached the taxi, a police officer was holding my carry bag. He asked me “IS THIS YOURS?” I replied, “YES.” I took the bag, then zipped open one of the pockets and held in my hand the rubber banded wad of the money. I looked at the officer and said “THAT SCHMUCK, HE COULD HAVE HAD ALL THIS!” You should have seen the look on the officer’s face!
I may add that when I was in the Police Station I phoned Alan Decker. Mr. Decker was the head of my association, The Mini Fleet Association. He was also an attorney and later on I would be a writer for his newspaper. While telling him where I was and what had just happened, I broke out into tears thinking about how I may have lost my life. This was a very unpleasant thing that had happened. I called my wife and told her that I was OK. I was crying that I came out of this unhurt. The money meant nothing.
If you ever saw the film ‘Captain Phillips’, Tom Hanks, the actor who played the part of Captain Phillips after being rescued by the U.S. Navy, was holding back tears while the Navy nurses were examining him. That was exactly how I felt!
Special thanks to Abe Mittleman for allowing us to reprint his incredible story. Be sure to follow him at NYC Taxi News, which is a great resource for all things NYC Taxi.
This is Dawood, founder of AutoMarketplace. I spoke to Abe yesterday to ask his permission to republish his incredible & incredibly written story, which he kindly allowed us to do. Thank you very much Abe 🙏. His story comes ahead of a 10am, Wednesday, August 9th Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) hearing that’s proposing to end the livery cab safety partition and in-vehicle camera system requirement, which has been in place since 2000. The hearing is also proposing less restrictive requirements around in-vehicle camera systems (IVCS).
Evan Simko-Bednarski, writing for the Daily News, recently authored a very insightful piece about the proposed rule changes, the differing views (for & against) and the violent history that led to the creation of the partition and camera system requirement. We encourage our subscribers to read his article.
“Nine livery drivers were murdered in 1999 in apparent robbery attempts. Five were murdered in April 2000 alone. At the time, TLC rules required owners of livery cab fleets to put partitions in all their cars. But in owner-operated livery cars, which made up 90% of the livery market, neither partitions nor cameras were required.
That changed in mid-April 2000, when the TLC mandated partitions or cameras in all livery cars. Around the same time, then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani put $5 million of city cash toward a fund to buy partitions for livery drivers.”
- Evan Simko-Bednarski (NY Daily News)
“This change aims to give the livery sector the same operational flexibility as other pre-arranged services in the for-hire vehicle sector, such as black cars”
- NYC TLC
“[Changing the requirement] is something we’ve been advocating for for a number of years. The livery industry is all for this.”
- Steven Shanker, executive director of the Livery Round Table
As always, let us know your thoughts in the comments section below or by emailing us at info@automarketplace.com. If you want to directly message Abe, you can reach him at nyctaxinews@aol.com.
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A powerful story that most of us have lived through!