Gil Avineri

Gil Avineri

Gil Avineri (1981- ) was born in Colombia to Colombian and Israeli parents. He grew up in Los Angeles, Houston, and Miami and has traveled across the United States and Europe, as well as visited South American and Israel. Avineri attended Florida Atlantic University where he studied Elementary Education. He moved to New York in 2005 and began driving a cab the following year. He currently resides in Brooklyn with his family. Outside of his profession, he creates journal collages in which he chronicles his experiences in the cab, maintains two blogs and travels frequently.

In this interview, Gil Avineri discusses his decision to move to New York, his initial experiences in the city and how he became a cab driver. He relates significant encounters with passengers and his opinions on current issues in the industry, such as fare gouging, the economic recession, environmental concerns, crime and discrimination. Specifically, he relates a recent situation in which he aided the police in catching a burglar involved in a string of thefts in Manhattan. Avineri expresses a fondness for the community of cab drivers, both in the garages, around the city and online. He also explains the background behind his blogs, “Taxicab Almanac of NYC” and “Tips for Cab Drivers,” and the artwork he creates in his collage journals that detail each of his shifts with maps, images and words. His interview is a thorough and candid overview of the changes in the industry over the past four years and how these changes have affected the cab driving community.

November 11, 2010

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1. These interviews were conducted keeping in mind the General Principles & Best Practices for Oral History provided by the Oral History Association (2009). The Oral History Association states that those using oral histories “should strive for intellectual honesty and the best application of the skills of their discipline. They should avoid stereotypes, misrepresentations, and manipulations of the narrator’s words. This includes foremost striving to retain the integrity of the narrator’s perspective, recognizing the subjectivity of the interview, and interpreting and contextualizing the narrative according to the professional standards of the applicable scholarly disciplines.”

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4. The New York City Taxi Driver Oral History Project is a documentation project and is designed to document the voices and perspectives of selected taxi drivers at a given moment in the history of the NYC taxi industry. The project directors have not and do not intend to cast judgment, interpret, or draw conclusions based on these interviews.

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"Narrator’s Name," in The New York City Taxi Driver Oral History Project, Item #, http://nyctaxisoralhistory.com/project (accessed Month Day, Year).

Audio

English

Margaret Fraser, Samantha Gibson

Gil Avineri

New York, NY

WAV, mp3

1:24:37

128 kbit/s

Start - 10:00: background, moving to New York, interest in travel, education relationship to New York

10:00 - 20:00: experience as a bike messenger and working with a moving company, initial experience as a cab driver, immigrants in the industry, relationship to garage and management

20:00 - 30:00: tipping, misconceptions about the industry, stress, relationship with other drivers, community, credit card machines

30:00 - 40:00: NYTWA, medallions, fare gouging, GPS system, hard passengers

40:00 - 50:00: drivers in the media, greening of the fleets, economic recession, staying safe, race and religion, getting advice from older drivers, immigrants in the industry

50:00 - 1:00:00: violence against drivers, changes in the city over the last four years, favorite neighborhoods, keeping journals and artwork

1:00:00 - 1:10:00: blogging, learning on the job, online community, access to bathrooms, bus lanes, going above and beyond the job, tourists

1:10:00 - end: hitchhiking and travel, cabs in other countries, enjoying the job