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Ad Rates / Articles / Classified Ads / Editorial / Home / Links / Showtime   Cosway's Corner - Ontario taxis turn 170   Ontario taxi celebrates 170th birthday in 2007   By John Cosway Call me a cab.   OK, you are a cab.   Yes, that joke is old, but not nearly as old as Ontario's cab industry, which marks its 170th anniversary in 2007.   Numerous generations have grown up in Ontario seeing passing cabs, hailing cabs, perhaps cursing cabs, but can you name the first cab-for-hire provider in the province?   Would you be surprised to hear it was Thornton Blackburn, an illiterate Kentucky slave who fled to Upper Canada with his wife, Lucie, in 1833 with the help of the Underground Railroad?   Would you answer 1837 if asked when did the enterprising former Osgoode Hall waiter take his horse-drawn, four-passenger carriage into Toronto traffic for the first time?   Blackburn's prized yellow and red carriage - he called it The City - wasn't the first in Canada. Montreal had already introduced the service, fashioned after the famous 16th century carriages-for-hire in London, England, and Paris.   But Blackburn was the first in Ontario to recognize the need for getting people from Point A to Point B for a fee. So here's a tip of the Wayback Times hat to the Blackburn, who became a prominent and respected member of Toronto's black community   Vehicles for hire have been called many names since the 1500's: Cabriolet - A two-wheeled carriage built to accommodate two people, introduced in the early 1830's in England, eventually shortened to "cab."   Checker - Michigan's Checker Motors Company produced this line, known as Checker Taxis, from the 1950's through the 1980's. Among the most recognized taxis.   Hackney - From Hacquenee, a Norman French word meaning horse for hire, used in England from the mid-1500's to describe coaches and carriages-for-hire.   Hansom - A horse-drawn, two-seater carriage for hire patented in England in 1834 by Joseph Hansom. Speedy and safe. Referred to as the Hansom Safety Cab.   Jitney - A North American coinage term used to describe discount or unlicensed taxicabs, common in Canada and the United States in the 1900's. Their operators were called Jitney Men.   Taxicab/Taxi - Abbreviated from taximeter, an 1891 invention by German inventor Wilhem Bruhn. From the Greek word Taxideyo (to travel.)   Yellow - Another North American taxi business icon, introduced in 1915 by the Yellow Cab Manufacturing Company, founded the same year by John Hertz.   Whatever they were called, paying to get somewhere in London, Paris, New York, Toronto and other major cities has since generated countless jokes and tales.   Cabbies have helped fight crime; assisted in back seat births; they have been robbed, stabbed, shot at and murdered; they have enlightened countless passengers with their experiences in human behavior; they have overcharged unsuspecting tourists.   Talk show hosts and comedians have milked the often wild and wacky cab driver stories for all they are worth.   The late, great radio personality Fred Allen once said: "The first thing that strikes a visitor to Paris is a taxi."   And comedian George Burns said: "Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair."   New York cabbies, elevated in stature by Martin Scorsese' classic 1976 film Taxi Driver, are as much a tourist attraction as the Empire State building. Cabbies in London, England, enjoy a fleet fit for royalty.   How has the Ontario cab industry evolved?   John Duffy, publisher of The Taxinews, an Ontario taxi industry watchdog, believes Toronto's cabbies hold their own when it comes to progress.   "I suppose they are right where they should be, but I'd like to see the drivers better organized, with a safer working environment and better benefits," says Duffy. "But the city has policies that largely preclude much of this."   One of Ontario's most fascinating cab stories involves filmmaker Robert Swartz and the three-generation family ownership of cab license 138. It started with Robert's grandfather (Cecil Strauss) acquiring the cab license in the 1950's. It passed down to his grandmother, Sally Strauss, and then to himself in 2006. Along the way, his grandfather and five maternal uncles - Joe, Al, Sam, Ben and Louis Rodney - all drove cabs in Toronto. His Uncle Joe died in his cab.   So Robert has taxi tales to tell and his favourite is how his grandmother tripped a Toronto bank robber on the street in 1961, only to learn the desperate bandit, a gambler who owed money, was a taxi driver her husband knew. Her heroics earned her a $5,900 reward, a thank you notice from Toronto police and a Robert Swartz short film about the capture   "I believe the robber got two years in jail," says Robert, who has another film in the works - Cab 138. It will recap six decades of his family's involvement in the Toronto cab business.   "I am in the process of researching for the film. I am speaking with taxi drivers and people in the business, trying to learn how it all works. I haven't begun full production yet, but will in the spring. I hope to have it out by 2008."   There are endless taxi stories to tell.   On the philosophical side, artist/cartoonist Lou Erickson once said: "Life is like a taxi. The meter just keeps a-ticking whether you are getting somewhere or just standing still."   The meter never stops for worldwide collectors of taxi memorabilia. Hundreds of taxi items can be found on eBay and other online auctions, ranging from real vintage cabs - a 1929 Ford Model A taxi sold recently on eBay for about $24,000US - to a wide range of collectibles.   There are original taxi meters, Taxi Driver movie posters, taxi salt and pepper shakers, vintage cab company hats, pins, luggage tags, license plates, roof signs, toy model taxis, games, advertising signs, souvenir ashtrays etc., etc., etc.   Recent taxi memorabilia sales on eBay include $900US for a taxi pinball machine; $1.800US for a Matchbox 1-75 20C Chevrolet Impala Taxi (see photo); $500US for a cast iron 1941 arcade taxi; $450US for a vintage 1900s taximeter by Bell Punch etc.   Ontario's numerous antique markets and flea markets are another great source for rare taxi collectibles.   So call me a cab.     Return to top of page   This Is Livin' Publishing © 2009 581 8th Line West, RR1 Hastings, ON, K0L 1Y0 Phone/Fax: 705-696-1833   webmaster