Watching images on TV or watching an American movie, we observe that shots taken on the streets of New York reveal an impressive predominance of several yellow cars. Before long, you realize that those cars of the same color make up the fleet of taxis that circulate through one of the largest urban centers in the world. More than just means of transportation, New York's yellow taxis are considered a curious tourist attraction in that place.
Being a tradition more than a century old, New York taxis began their history in the year 1907, when the first automobile powered by fuel began to offer this type of service. In the 1970s, this vehicle was immortalized by the famous movie “Taxi Driver”, in which actor Robert De Niro plays the legendary Travis Bickle, a frustrated young taxi driver who goes mad amidst the underworld that only drivers of that era knew.
The yellow color of New York taxis also makes up a rich part of its history, especially when we investigate the transformation of the service into a large-scale business. In 1915, John Hertz, owner of a fleet of taxis, read in a University of Chicago bulletin that the dark yellow color, obtained by mixing yellow with a little red paint, could be identified by anyone for a hundred meters.
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Academic theory ended up causing the businessman to paint his fleet of four hundred cars with the tone that today typifies the “cabs” of New York. More than just a matter of taste, the color change ended up yielding a larger profit margin and, in a short time, John Hertz became the owner of the largest taxi company in the entire city. It wasn't until the 1970s that Hertz's idea was officially employed in standardizing all of the city's taxis.
Nowadays, New York taxis are the target of a series of projects that aim to adapt the traditional means of transport to modern times. In 2007, there was an interest in inserting dual-fuel engines in the entire fleet, which would drastically reduce the cost of supply and reduce the emission of polluting gases. Recently, the Taxi and Limousine Commission of New York opened space to receive new ideas that could expand the services available in the “yellows”.
By Rainer Sousa
Master in History
Brazil School Team
Curiosities - Brazil School
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
SOUSA, Rainer Gonçalves. "New York Taxis"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/curiosidades/os-taxis-nova-york.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
