Terry Gelber lumbers into a filled classroom and greets his new students with handshakes and some unexpected courtesies.
“Mr. Vice President,” he says to one man before moving down the rows. “Senator. Congressman. Hey, Mr. Mayor, how are you?”
And although no one has ever cast a vote for any of them, the titles could be considered appropriate: These men represent the city’s future ambassadors.
These are the city’s aspiring cab drivers.
About 25 of them fill a drab classroom with bare, faded-white walls in a poorly-marked office building in Long Island City. But what the surroundings lack in character is made up for tenfold by Gelber, the instructor and owner of Master Cabbie Taxi Academy.
Gelber, 57, is straight out of the lost audition tapes for the classic sitcom “Taxi.” He sports a faded green T-shirt, jeans and suspenders hugging the sides of his torso. Contrary to his typecast appearance, Gelber was an actor at heart in 1982 when he became a city cab driver at night to earn extra cash. Three years later, the driving proved too grueling to do regularly, but an opportunity designed by a nonprofit organization to teach taxi basics to immigrants soon got him into teaching. He founded Master Cabbie in 1996.
The Gotham cabbie of yesteryear starts things off by handing out a bag containing what could only be described as a survival kit for any wannabe New York City taxi driver. The tote includes the NYC Yellow Cab Drivers Rules booklet, three sets of “Know & Go NYC Flash Cards,” and — the most daunting study material of all — the New York City Five Borough Street Atlas.
From there, it’s a relentless hammering of geographical facts on the city map, from understanding the exact point the FDR Drive becomes the Harlem River Drive to identifying where Inwood Hill Park is located. Though the map is right in front of them, some newbies can’t seem to get a hang of the terrain that is New York City.
“We’ve done six parks so far,” he says in a jokingly exasperated tone. “If after six parks we don’t know what color [on the map] a park is, we’ve got to call the paramedics.”
Although today’s lesson is strictly devoted to geography, any given class may cover topics ranging from cellphone violations to defensive driving. However, test-takers are required to endure only six hours of a DMV-certified, defensive-driving course — along with passing a drug test and having a valid driver’s license — before accelerating to the exam.
Gelber says it would be wise for his students to pump their brakes before rushing to take the test.
“You’ve got to keep doing this stuff,” Gelber says. “That’s why these classes are unlimited. People need to take the time to be here.”
There’s no easy path to becoming a cabbie, just as there’s no easy way to be a successful cabbie. Drivers traditionally say there’s no way to make fast money. Gelber says you have to put in the hours to reap the rewards in cab driving. Although the US Bureau of Labor Statistics lists the annual mean wage of a cab driver at $34,060 in the metropolitan area of New York and New Jersey, Gelber says a hustling driver can rake in up to $1,500 a week.
Petrus Lemonidis is familiar with the kind of money drivers can make. His father operated his own cab for years in Greece. The Astoria resident followed in those footsteps, driving his own cab as well before coming to the US. Now, he’s eager to start his cabbie career in New York, but vows not to rush through his instruction courses. He’s perched in the back row amid his fourth week of classes.
“One more week, and I’ll be ready,” says the 37-year-old, who’s slated to take the test on Friday. Until then, he’s getting acquainted with practice tests to brush up his skills.
For the most part, this is the ultimate boys’ club: Gelber says less than 1 percent of his student population consists of women.
But tucked in the corner of the room sits Sali Dembele, a 28-year-old Bronx resident. Although the majority of the class blurts out answers without much thought and chuckles instinctively at Gelber’s subsequent cracks, the soft-spoken Dembele keeps to herself, carefully taking notes.
Dembele, who moved from a suburb of Ohio to New York about a year ago, is raising money to go to school and study finance. Until then, she’s looking for a job that allows flexible hours and little authority. Driving a cab seemed perfect.
“I don’t like to work for somebody,” says Dembele. “I like to work for me. I like to be independent.”
But in Gelber’s experience, success of the job is about communication.
“The ones that are chatty, they’re gonna make it,” he says. “You’ve got to be outgoing in this job.”