--- title: New York Taxis, the Golden Age: Gotham Cabs and Cabbies of the 1940s description: LIFE.com recalls the taxi cabs that prowled New York City in the 1940s, and the rough-looking, distinctive characters who drove them. canonical: https://time.com/3877443/all-hail-new-york-taxis-gotham-cabs-and-cabbies-of-the-1940s/ author: Ben Cosgrove article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2013-06-17T20:46:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:47:35.149Z og:title: New York Taxis, the Golden Age: Gotham Cabs and Cabbies of the 1940s og:description: LIFE.com recalls the taxi cabs that prowled New York City in the 1940s, and the rough-looking, distinctive characters who drove them. og:url: https://time.com/3877443/all-hail-new-york-taxis-gotham-cabs-and-cabbies-of-the-1940s/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc43460f3f4f5d2f9/69884a4d35ba6f631ec0ca80/01_05583455.jpg?branch=production&width=983&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 983 og:image:height: 553 og:image:alt: Taxi Cabs 1944 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: New York Taxis, the Golden Age: Gotham Cabs and Cabbies of the 1940s twitter:description: LIFE.com recalls the taxi cabs that prowled New York City in the 1940s, and the rough-looking, distinctive characters who drove them. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc43460f3f4f5d2f9/69884a4d35ba6f631ec0ca80/01_05583455.jpg?branch=production&width=983&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # All Hail New York Taxis: Gotham Cabs and Cabbies of the 1940s > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Jun 17, 2013 8:46 PM UTC  A New York City doorman flags down a taxi for one of the residents of his building, 1944. A New York City doorman flags down a taxi for one of the residents of his building, 1944. William C. Shrout—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Jun 17, 2013 8:46 PM UTC The New York City of most peoples’ imaginations usually looks and sounds like the New York of a few very distinct decades. There’s today’s post-Bloomberg New York City, of course — the bright, weirdly clean (well, it’s clean in parts of Manhattan, at least) largely smoke-free metropolis of complicated bike lanes, pedestrian malls and other “improvements” that, to most people, feel about as New Yark as a wine spritzer at a football game. Then there’s the Big Apple of the 1970s: the New York of _Mean Streets_ and _Taxi Driver;_ of “Ford to City: Drop Dead” and Blondie, Television, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, the New York Dolls and the Ramones at Max’s Kansas City; of “the Bronx Is Burning” and Son of Sam. The New York, in other words, of the old, scary, late, semi-lamented Times Square of sordid lore. [\[MORE: See the gallery, “Love Letter to New York: Classic LIFE Photos of the Big Apple”\]](http://life.time.com/culture/new-york-city-classic-photos-of-the-big-apple-from-life-magazine/#1) Finally, there’s New York in what many consider its Golden Age: the New York City of the 1940s and 1950s, when men wore hats, women wore gloves, a dime got you a cup of coffee and — in the popular imagination, anyway — there were doormen standing on every curb, flagging down taxi cabs for dames who looked like Veronica Lake. Here, in honor of that last vision of Gotham as a noir film set where absolutely everything is seen in deep-shadowed black-and-white, LIFE.com recalls those big, burly taxi cabs of the 1940s, and the rough-looking, distinctive characters who drove them. [\[MORE: See the gallery, “Lower Manhattan: Where New York Was Born”\]](http://life.time.com/history/lower-manhattan-before-9-11-classic-photos-of-downtown-new-york/#1) _Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter_ [_@lizabethronk_](https://twitter.com/LizabethRonk)_._  A New York City doorman flags down a taxi for one of the residents of his building, 1944. William C. Shrout—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Scene in New York City, 1944. William C. Shrout—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Scene in New York City, 1944. William C. Shrout—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Taxicabs line up for arriving train passengers at (the original) Pennsylvania Station, New York City, 1944. William C. Shrout—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  New York cabbies sporting their numbered Public Hack Driver badges, 1944. William C. Shrout—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Scene in New York City, 1944. William C. Shrout—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Taxi "hack stand," New York City, 1944. William C. Shrout—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Train passengers wait to take taxi cabs outside (the original) Pennsylvania Station, New York City, 1944. William C. Shrout—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Close-up of typical cab driver's report including locations and fares collected during his day's work; taxicab drivers lined up at company's garage to turn in money collected in fares during the day (right), New York City, 1944. William C. Shrout—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Mechanics use a hoist to drop in the motor of a taxicab under repair at cab company's maintenance garage, NYC, 1944. William C. Shrout—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Taxicabs on Park Avenue, NYC, 1944. William C. Shrout—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Scene in New York City, 1944. William C. 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