The Other Side of Midnight (2 page)

There are standby lots spread out all over the city, places where drivers wait for the dispatcher to send them on a job: strip malls, gravel patches just off the main roads, colleges and government buildings. Taxis wait at airports and at hotels with which the company has a contract. These were the sites of most interviews. Some were in homes; some were in coffee shops. As to finding interview subjects, a taxicab driver occasionally introduced a friend. Other drivers were approached blindly but often without much success.

Many interviews were conducted while the driver waited for a job. If one took place in a taxi, the driver sat alone up front and the microphone was placed on the armrest. When little or no background information was available, form questions were posed:
When did you start taxiing? What companies have you worked for?
Has it been an enjoyable or negative experience?
While some interviews lasted for more than an hour—and a few taxicab drivers availed themselves for follow-ups—most spoke for just twenty minutes or so. The structure of the book was determined by those brief but highly informative interviews.

Only a few of the chapters within this book are life stories, or self-contained narratives. Most are snapshots of a specific incident gleaned from a longer interview. These monologues are divided by title but connected thematically, and they are often introduced by brief commentary. Oftentimes a taxi driver will speak more than once and at different points about a variety of subjects.

This book also addresses change in the periphery—the social, cultural and physical landscape of St. John's—and how the taxicab industry has adapted. Sometimes this change was technological, like the introduction of radios, fare meters and snow tires, while other times it was less tangible and more incremental, like the disappearance of the neighbourhood stands and the emergence of the fleets. But for the taxicab drivers themselves, working conditions have remained relatively static. Most are working poor, and few enjoy real job security. In fact, in some respects, conditions have worsened. Large fleets have consumed the vast majority of small taxi stands, creating a soft monopoly which contributes to the drivers' inability to affect change. In fact, outside of a handful of individually operated taxis, the neighbourhood stand has vanished. Taxicab drivers are no longer represented by a unified organization. The office of the taxi inspector, once a full-time position, has now been reduced to two Bylaw Enforcement Officers who are responsible for the administration of a whole host of municipal bylaws. Increases in drop rates, the amount one pays for just getting in a cab, play catch-up to inflation and operating costs.

This sample of interviews does not account for the working lives of all St. John's taxicab drivers. For some, it is a positive experience, reinforced by relationships formed with customers over years of reliable service, camaraderie with fellow drivers and economic independence. But these interviews do reveal that a significant number of taxicab drivers don't have the means to rise above the mire of the working poor, the dead end that can be driving a taxicab. The difficulty to earn minimum wage, despite working fifteen hours a day, seven days a week, was a recurring theme. One driver, a middle-aged former tradesperson who couldn't find employment in his field even with twenty years of job experience, said, “My wife once asked me why I keep at it. I told her, ‘Because no one else will have me.'”

The Good Ol' Days

The Early Taxi Cab Industry

“In the old days, a fellow got big tips and didn't have to push a
hack for sixteen hours; when he didn't have to fracture his skull climbing
over a cab in front of him; when the streets weren't crowded with
trucks and cars.”

– Emil Hendrickson, New York cab driver,
from Graham Russell Gao Hodges,
Taxi!: A Social History of the New York City Cabdriver

The people of St. John's wouldn't have heard the word “cab” or “cabriolet” until at least 1820. It referred to horse-drawn carriages with two or four wheels, which seated up to four people. During the Victorian Era, the word “taxi” didn't mean much, either. Popularized in the United States, its origins are actually German. The “taxi meter,” invented by Wilhelm Bruhn in 1905, recorded fares based on time and distance traveled. The word “taxicab” only became popular with the significant increase in automobile use in the early twentieth century. While the history books are pretty mute on the St. John's taxicab industry, we do know that by the 1860s cab stands appeared at Haymarket Square and Post Office Square on the east end of Water Street. By the 1870s, cabs had become so numerous that the city began the process of regulation. But that's where the historical narrative seems to end. Even the provincial and city archives are relatively silent on early taxicabs.

The story picks up again not long after automobiles began to appear in St. John's around 1905. Just prior to the First World War, the number of taxicabs operating in the city had grown enough that, in February 1912, the municipal council adopted “Cab Fare and Regulations for the City of St. John's.” It required cab drivers to be licensed before plying for hire, to be eighteen years old and to have their cabs regularly inspected by a city official.

But that commercial activity held little resemblance to today's large fleets and brokerage system. Cabs were operated by one or two men who drove an automobile in the summer and, at the first sign of cold weather, put it into storage. A horse and side-sled were then used during the winter. At that time, Water Street and Duckworth Street were mud-clogged in the fall and spring and nearly impassable in the winter. The steep hills were treacherous, and the side streets were little more than pathways beaten down into the dirt. Automobiles simply couldn't get around. In fact, carriages operated well into the late 1920s. Anyone owning a cab went to the harbour and to the railway station on the east end of Water Street looking for a “hobble,” or casual work. Some operated as tour cars. P. W. Patterson, who had a taxicab stand on the corner of Military Road and Gower Street, advertised his services in
The Evening
Telegram
: “First Class Touring Cars, of high power, driven by expert chauffeurs for hire.”

The first modern taxi stand to appear in St. John's was Station Taxi. Other stands soon followed—Grey Taxi, Blue Taxi and Hotel Taxi—expanding into what could be best described as a public utility. It was illegal for taxicab drivers to cruise for fares. To insure best mileage and easy access to customers, they stuck around the Post Office and the Courthouse, resulting in street congestion. For the first time, the city emerged from a passive role to impose some order on the industry by getting taxis off the main streets and limiting companies to five cars. A letter to St. John's City Council from the Department of the Colonial Secretary addressed their concerns: “For traffic purposes the cabmen now having stands in front of the Post Office and in front of the Courthouse should be removed from Water Street to some of the rear streets.”

By the early 1930s, the country had plunged into the depths of the global economic Depression. Ninety thousand Newfoundlanders were on the “dole,” or public assistance, with one third of the population living on 6 cents a day. In St. John's, unemployment was particularly visible. Throngs of men hung around the wharves and piers along the harbour, outside warehouses and on street corners. With no alternative for work, some turned to taxiing. At the height of the Depression, there were upwards of twenty taxi stands competing for hire where just five years before there were six. Many operated from residential homes while others had no known fixed address. Financially unable or unwilling to repair or replace their vehicles, unlicensed operators were continually entering and exiting the industry. They had become so numerous the city requested that the Newfoundland Constabulary “assist in rounding them up.”

But then the Second World War all but eliminated unemployment in St. John's. The population grew by 11 per cent thanks to the “friendly invasion” of American, British and Canadian forces. According to historian Malcolm MacLeod, “The maximum number of American troops at any time came to 16,000; the Canadian total was slightly larger.” By war's end, three quarters of 1 million troops had passed through American bases and installations.

For the taxicab industry, contracts with the American military meant big business. Stands began to pop up seemingly overnight. Some were operated from dispatch offices in backyard sheds; others, like Crown Taxi on Springdale Street, operated from makeshift booths alongside telephone poles. Larger companies like Burgess Brothers' Cabs took the opportunity to expand their business by more than doubling their number of licensed taxicabs and by building a garage to service them, common practice amongst taxi fleets in larger North American cities.

By the end of the war, the taxicab industry had ballooned to thirty-seven stands. By that time, the city was playing catch-up when it passed the “Taxi Bylaw” in November 1950, adapting existing regulations to meet technological advancements such as fare meters, better built cars and a swiftly urbanizing society. The bylaw made annual taxi driver licences and approved meters mandatory and set minimum employment standards for drivers (such as age and so- briety). Background checks prepared for the city by the Newfoundland Constabulary's Criminal Investigation Department are invaluable in revealing the social and economic backgrounds of taxicab drivers. The few available files—a brief selection from what must have been hundreds—indicate the applicants' addresses and job histories. Most were from the working class areas of St. John's. Some were veterans while others were unemployed tradesmen. The vast majority were men who had taxied prior to the war, and who, with few or no employment opportunities, returned to the one job where they knew they could make a dollar: taxiing.

The Last of the Old Taxi Men

Roy Burgess, son of Harry Burgess, owner of Burgess Brothers'
Cabs

Parked in his son's garage is Mr. Burgess' first car, a
‘
38 Nash. A
taxicab sign is still attached to the roof, the original fare meter still in
the glove box. On fine days, he takes it out to car shows, or parks it in
front of his condo. It's a source of great pride. “She's the only antique
taxicab in this city,” he said. “My intent was to completely rebuild her.
But my father said she wouldn't be an antique taxi if I did that. She
had to be as she was then—original.” Mr. Burgess is probably the last
of the old taxi men. He witnessed the Depression, WWII and Confederation.
WWII was an exciting time to be young in St. John's. For that
generation, there was only one war, “The War.” Mr. Burgess was in his
early twenties then. His father, Harry, and uncle, Jim, were the owners
of one of St. John's' largest taxi companies, Burgess Brothers' Cabs. Career
taxi men were once the norm, he explained. A man could make
a decent dollar for himself and raise a family. It was a respected profession.

I suppose I'm the only old taxi man still around. I'm certainly the only one left in my family. My brother and sister are dead. My uncle Jim, who was in partnership with my father, never had any children. Harry Bugden and his daughter, Olive, are dead and gone. Doug Voisey—his father was Hotel Taxi—died of a heart attack.

Of the old taxi stands, the last was Burgess Brothers' Cabs, and we closed down in 1982. They were all taken over by people like the Gullivers and the Holletts. O.K. Taxi—that's another one that used to be big—didn't come into being until after the war. All of them that are in business today, like Northwest Taxi, have started up since George Street. Northwest Taxi was the old West End Taxi on Water Street west. They changed the name when they started operating from the Village Mall. Another one is City Wide. Dave Gulliver was originally in business with his father, which was Gulliver's Taxi on Queen's Street. Then he started his own stand and called it Dave Gulliver's Cabs. But Dave is only a young man compared to me.

Did I tell you how my father got into the taxi business? He decided he wanted to start taxiing, but he had no money. He went down to the Bank of Montreal on Water Street, walked in and said, “I want a loan of $500.”

The bank manager asked him, “What do you want $500 for?”

“I want to buy a car to go taxiing.”

“You're going to go into business by yourself?”

“Oh, yes.”

“What collateral have you got?”

Now a man with Grade 5, what we used to call “primer,” didn't know what the word “collateral” meant. He said, “What do you mean? What's collateral?”

“What value of the $500 have you got?”

My father said, “If I had the value of $500, I wouldn't be in here asking you for $500.” He was right, as far as he knew. He had no education, or anything.