Metro

Taxi test stumps many New Yorkers

The Bronx is up, and the Battery’s down — and that may be all most New Yorkers know about their city.

Big Apple residents overwhelmingly fumbled the most basic geography questions from the city’s taxi exam, botching the locations of landmarks from the Guggenheim Museum to The Algonquin hotel, a Post survey of 100 New Yorkers showed.

A mere 32 percent correctly named the Guggenheim when asked which museum was at 89th Street and Fifth Avenue.

And just 21 percent knew that The Algonquin, Dorothy Parker’s favorite watering hole, is on 44th Street west of Fifth Avenue.

Happily, professional cabbies do a lot better.

At a recent class for prospective hacks held by the Master Cabbie Taxi Academy, the exclusively foreign-born students rattled off geographic tidbits better than natives did.

Asked what the Joe DiMaggio Highway — which they all knew as the official name of the West Side Highway — becomes in downtown Manhattan, everyone answered, “West Street.”

But the room was stone silent when teacher Terry Gelber asked who DiMaggio was.

“Someone must know Marilyn Monroe!” Gelber said of Joe D.’s bride, finally prompting a few nods of recognition.

“They always know that,” said Gelber, an ex-cabby.

As for New Yorkers, almost everyone approached by The Post bragged about how well they knew the city — but only 17 percent got more than six out of 10 questions right.

A whopping 71 percent got five or fewer answers right.

One Upper West Sider was so ashamed of his miserable two out of 10 score that he refused to give his name.

“That was embarrassing!” he said. “I’ve lived here forever, and I don’t know anything. That’s just sad!”

Twelve percent couldn’t answer a single question right.

“I don’t know how cabdrivers do it!” a red-faced 26-year-old said after giving the correct answer to just one question.

Even Taxi & Limousine Commissioner David Yassky scored just six out of 10. He knew the southern end of Madison Avenue: 23rd Street.

“I only knew where Madison Avenue began because I used to have an office on Park and 27th,’’ he said.

But he didn’t know which streets border the World Trade Center. He got only two out of the correct four: West, Church, Vesey and Liberty Streets.

Because the TLC’s 80-question test is not public, the Post’s questions came from the Master Academy.

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