GRAN MANZANA
Bushwick was the first neighborhood I called home upon moving to New York. And in that same corner of Brooklyn is where I found housing affordable enough to establish a suitable address for my little sister, her two schoolmates, and our mother… all brand new transplants from Florida. Living under the same roof since August, we've adapted well, and maximized the occupant capacity with the arrival of my father. It's a commonwealth that consists of three college students, an electrician uprooted from the tropics thanks to extensive economic upheavals, a social worker who can't live without her adult children, and a yellow cabbie who has put his world travel plans on hold while he provides the aforementioned people with general sustenance until they can stand on their own ten feet.
It's been seven months nonstop since I jumped back into the taxi profession, and a lot has changed since I first received my NYC hack license (last year). GPS is now in the cabs and well, every handful of shifts feels like a half decade's worth of hands on experience in the vast spectrum of socioeconomic anthropology and the urban clockwork of this unique city. I keep a notebook of mentionable adventures and serendipities encountered while on the streets, which I hope to begin sharing here and on a blog inspired by a fellow driver who posts her stories on www.newyorkhack.blogspot.com.
So here we are, embarking on our first full winter season ever, as a family unit. We've really come along with this counterclockwise rotation around the nation. From Los Angeles in 1984 to Houston in 1993, to West Palm Beach in 1998, to a post 9-11 big apple. And all the while there was nothing I wanted more than to circle the planet on a bicycle (so to speak). The first rain check that got in my way was college. Then paying off the loans as steadfastly and interest-free as possible. A quick glimpse of South America and now it's back to work, cause I couldn't allow financial trouble in the family to prevent my little sister from going to the best university for the field she wants. And now matters have been made worse with the advent of higher monthly mortgage payments and the Floridian recession, which among other things, makes remunerative employment scarcer for working class people like my folks.
Luckily, being a yellow cabdriver in New York City is so magnanimous and temerarious that it eases, or numbs the psychological burden of a seventy some odd hour workweek. Watch for upcoming entries that zoom in on genuine moments inside the 13,087th taxicab as it expedites human beings uptown, downtown and across town.
It's been seven months nonstop since I jumped back into the taxi profession, and a lot has changed since I first received my NYC hack license (last year). GPS is now in the cabs and well, every handful of shifts feels like a half decade's worth of hands on experience in the vast spectrum of socioeconomic anthropology and the urban clockwork of this unique city. I keep a notebook of mentionable adventures and serendipities encountered while on the streets, which I hope to begin sharing here and on a blog inspired by a fellow driver who posts her stories on www.newyorkhack.blogspot.com.
So here we are, embarking on our first full winter season ever, as a family unit. We've really come along with this counterclockwise rotation around the nation. From Los Angeles in 1984 to Houston in 1993, to West Palm Beach in 1998, to a post 9-11 big apple. And all the while there was nothing I wanted more than to circle the planet on a bicycle (so to speak). The first rain check that got in my way was college. Then paying off the loans as steadfastly and interest-free as possible. A quick glimpse of South America and now it's back to work, cause I couldn't allow financial trouble in the family to prevent my little sister from going to the best university for the field she wants. And now matters have been made worse with the advent of higher monthly mortgage payments and the Floridian recession, which among other things, makes remunerative employment scarcer for working class people like my folks.
Luckily, being a yellow cabdriver in New York City is so magnanimous and temerarious that it eases, or numbs the psychological burden of a seventy some odd hour workweek. Watch for upcoming entries that zoom in on genuine moments inside the 13,087th taxicab as it expedites human beings uptown, downtown and across town.