Document text
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
NEW YORK
STATE
NANE OF WORKER FRED ROMANOFSKY
8640 Bay Parkway, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Oct. 11, 1937
"CABBIES"
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
"Sure, if it's tales you want, we'll give 'em to you.
You give us one and we'll give you another. Bet you two to one
that our stories are better. "Hey, Moishei He's got more tales
than anybody."
Moishe„ Mike, and several other cabbies came over out of
pure curtosity and began to talk keeping an eye on thcAr cabs and
prospective "rides". The stories they told were not folklore or
tall tales, with a few exceptions, but were stories based on their
own experience:
Mike here picked up a girl, one day. She just came out
of the City Hall and asked to be driven to 57th Street. Anything
Looked good so Mike steered the lady up Broadway. Once there the
woman asked to be driven to the George Washington Bridge. So Mika
takes her there. Then she asks to be driven across to the Jersey
side and when they crossed the bridge, Mike asks, "Where now lady?"
"Chicago" "Lady you're nuts" and leaves her in Jersey when he sees
she acts kind of crazy like.
-2
Once our lodge was initiating a new member so we sent
him to the bath house "mikva" to the ladies side. We put a sheet
over him and smuggled him in. He goes in and sees many women around
him all undressed. Then he saw an old woman bathing. She cams over
and asked why the sheet in a bath house? "That's to cover my feet.
I catch a cold" the initiate answered in a whisper. *Well your feet
stiolsout, lady." the old woman replied.
4•1.100,
A well dressed man asked to be taken up to 161st. Street.
So I drive up Lexington Avenue. Then he signals to me that he wants
to stop at a cigar store to buy some cigarettes. So I does and wait
till he goes into store and leave the door of the cab wide open.
I sit and wait for him, Then I hear the door close and I step on
the gas and go all the way up to 161st street. I turn around to
ask the house number, but the cab was emptyi No man in there and
no fare for that trips Where did the man disappear? I dunno.
Maybe, someone pushed the door shut and I just went off thinking
my fare was in. And maybe not, Some queer things happen to us
cab drivers.
Pass a nun and you'll have poor business that day.
The first ride of the day if he is colored don't spell
nothing good.
A hearse passed on the road makes some boys itchy for
the rest of the day. They're done for the day.
Thins don't happen as often now as they did in the
old days. Most of the boys today are honest but poor not like in
the old days when they came tough in this racket. And it was a
racket then: You had to be tough. Why in the early 1920's, a
driver had to be tough to stand all the "stick up" gaff! Those
that could not stand it had to quit and many quit. Why we used
to have several stick ups per man every week! We were pretty
careful at nite title not to pick any suspicious characters and
on dark streets, We'd just pass them by. They worked it slick
by hailing a cab and asking to be driven to some dive where
several other "mugs" were waiting for the sucker for all they could
get out off him. It was a regular business till the police caught
up with it.
One tine I was down at Baltimore at the Belvedere Hotel
and in the middle of the night I get a call to take the next train
out for New York. So I get dressed quick, grab the pitcher that
stood by my bed and run out for the railroad station. Running down
the hotel lobby, the night clerk saw the pitcher in my hand and
he ran out after me to save the pitcher. He was a better a runner
than me so that when he caught up with me he demanded the pitoher
be returned to the hotel.
"Sure I'll return it, only I got my teeth in it and the
water's frozen. I'll return tha darn thing by mail," I said.