There's a great book on NY cab drivers and their tricks from someone who worked there a while, the one catch is it's written in Russian as it is authored by an immigrant from the Soviet Union:
It came out in the late 80s but the rules and the medallion system haven't really changed. The book describes the business and the psychology of drivers in-depth.
The book helped reinforce two opinions I hold:
Cab drivers are for the most part scumbags. I can't wait for self-driving cars and automated cab service.
"Political exiles" from the Soviet Union are for the most part scumbags (the author of the book is a "dissident" who worked as a propagandist at Radio Liberty but took up cabbying because that wasn't paying enough).
Now as to how this relates to the parent:
There are four reasons why a cabbie won't pick up passengers in NYC (these have been mentioned in various replies here):
1. Going from the city to the boroughs is a waste of time for cabbies.
2. Cabbies parked in front of hotels only want airport fares.
3. Cabbies racially profile for certain categories of people that have a reputation for paying their fares, tipping well, and unlikely to be muggers. This also depends on the time of day and pickup location.
4. In the 80s certain parts of the city were unsafe (going to Harlem meant being pelted with rocks and getting carjacked; not an exaggeration). Again, depending on who is going and time of day, there is still risk even today.
http://fictionbook.ru/author/lobas_vladimir/jieltiye_koroli/
It came out in the late 80s but the rules and the medallion system haven't really changed. The book describes the business and the psychology of drivers in-depth.
The book helped reinforce two opinions I hold:
Cab drivers are for the most part scumbags. I can't wait for self-driving cars and automated cab service.
"Political exiles" from the Soviet Union are for the most part scumbags (the author of the book is a "dissident" who worked as a propagandist at Radio Liberty but took up cabbying because that wasn't paying enough).
Now as to how this relates to the parent:
There are four reasons why a cabbie won't pick up passengers in NYC (these have been mentioned in various replies here):
1. Going from the city to the boroughs is a waste of time for cabbies.
2. Cabbies parked in front of hotels only want airport fares.
3. Cabbies racially profile for certain categories of people that have a reputation for paying their fares, tipping well, and unlikely to be muggers. This also depends on the time of day and pickup location.
4. In the 80s certain parts of the city were unsafe (going to Harlem meant being pelted with rocks and getting carjacked; not an exaggeration). Again, depending on who is going and time of day, there is still risk even today.
Yeah, robot cabbies, can't wait for them.