Posts Tagged "ny yellow cabs"

In 2014, we’ve come to rely on taxis for a multitude of reasons—they take us to the train, to the store, to the doctor; we use them for business to transport clients; we use them for leisure when we go out for a few drinks so we get home safely. If you need to get from point A to point B, you know there’s always a taxi nearby to get you there. But the taxis we know today are distant relatives of the first taxis that rolled out onto the streets in 1890. There’s a lot more history in the lifetime of the taxi than most people know—in this three-part series, let’s take a look at taxi evolution over the last century! Taxis in 1890 The most popular vehicle for hire was the horse-drawn carriage, but as cars began popping up across the country, they quickly began competing with the carriages for NYC fares. By 1899, there were nearly a hundred battery-operated cabs on the streets of Manhattan, with many New Yorkers hoping that these newfangled contraptions would provide a faster, cleaner, and quieter way of getting around. The batteries in these electric taxis weighed around 800 pounds, making them somewhat impractical, but they grew in popularity anyway. Taxis...