Yellow City
I took this photo on the twilit evening of October 11, 2011. It was displayed in an exhibition of photographs captured on the same date by my fellow Macaulay Honors College students all over New York City. The low lighting delayed my camera’s exposure, causing the city lights to blur and twist.
The figure of a yellow-clad traffic cop in the right foreground is paired with a typical New York cab in the left background. It is an ephemeral image, a portrait of the City in soft focus.
Though few people know that the yellow taxis are a function of the New York City government, they are internationally recognized as a New York symbol.
Why?
The taxicab is in many ways a microcosmic forum for everything New York.
A 2000 study showed that 83% of taxi drivers in the City are immigrants. Their demographic origins are a constantly changing dynamic. Haiti, India, Pakistan, Senegal, you name it. In 1992, approximately 65% of cab drivers had some level of post-high school education. An entire NY taxi culture has emerged from these individuals’ experiences. The collection of information garnered in their line of business traverses a wide spectrum of New Yorkers that is unmatched in any other profession. The publication of blogs and books has revealed the unique charm of the New York anecdote.
Eugene Saolomon has been driving a cab since 1977. He likes musicals and film noir, and started sharing his stories on the blog Cabs are for Kissing almost 6 years ago. He describes his cosmopolitan experiences in terms of “the unique aspects of driving a cab in New York City, the phenomenon of finding yourself suddenly mingling with various strata of the human race with whom you otherwise would probably never have had the opportunity to be in contact with.” Mr. Saolomon also happens to have a beautiful knack for seeing the city through fresh eyes every day. His interactions with New York’s diverse population are recorded in what is possibly one of the most vivacious and unaffected photographic records of the city—his second blog, Pictures from a Taxi.
It is comforting to know that, while CCTV may be recording masses of mindless footage, there are many, like Mr. Saolomon, who use the ever-increasing capacity to create, store and share media, toward the expression of ideas. They are blessedly mindful of the mise-en-scene and technique that distinguishes an image from art.
Who knows? Maybe it was Mr. Eugene Saolomon who zipped through the Yellow light on the corner of 87th and 5th that dusky evening…
