READERSVOICE.COM: That photo you took in the financial district early in the a.m. was evocative. Do you prefer moody night shots?
 
GENE SALOMON: I’m in my “Four O’Clock In The Morning Period”.  It’s the hour of the day that’s at the end of the old and the beginning of the new, and the city is at its emptiest.  It does lend itself to a lonely mood in a big city setting that is not normally associated with aloneness.
 
RV: I was wondering if you ever saw people like John Lennon walking around in the late 1970s, or which musicians or other prominent people you’ve found in your cab over the years? 
 
GS: I actually lived right across the street from John Lennon for two years in the late ’70s on W. 72nd Street and I did see him twice walking by with Yoko Ono.  Please check out the post “John Lennon Remembered” in my Cabs Are For Kissing blog from Dec. 8, 2010 for all I’ve got on John Lennon.  I ‘ve had many celebrities in my cab over the years.  I was wondering myself how many there have been, so I made a list which came to more than a hundred.  It includes Paul Simon (twice), Carly Simon, James Taylor, Art Garfunkel, Ray Davies, Greg Allman, Derrick Trucks, Diahann Carroll, Peter Yarrow, Eddie Fisher, Helen O’Connell, Marianne Faithful, and Tony Bennett, to name some of the music people.
 
RV: What other people do you find yourself thinking about from your years of cab driving, whether passengers or other drivers?
 
GS: Well, there was that blonde who asked me to come up to her apartment with her.
 
RV: Where do you go in your leisure time?
 
GS: Yankee Stadium.
 
RV: What do you like the most about taxi driving in New York?
 
GS: Freedom, adventure, sport (racing with other cabs), and extraordinary human contact.

– See picturesfromatxi.blogspot.com.
– Copyright Simon Sandall.