The Long and Turbulent History of the Checker Cab

often seen in the same classic light as the famous london black cab the yellow checker taxi has been a staple of the american transport scene for the past 100 years presenting a history that extends back beyond the iconic czech marathon of 1960 to the turn of the century with a story steeped in blood corruption and violence while at the same time not even originating in the city with which the checker brand would be most famously associated instead starting its journey in chicago the largest city of the midwest united states and once one of its major industrial hearts while cab services in the united states have existed since the early to mid-1800s it wasn't until the beginning of the 1900s that motorized taxi cabs started to make an appearance in the nation's major cities chicago being of prime demand for point-to-point transportation as it was the main railroad center of the country once boasting 11 terminal stations which were the origins and destinations for among the most famous name trains of the us railroad system including the 20th century limited the broadway limited the super chief the empire builder and the city of san francisco a lack of direct connections between each of these terminals in a majority of cases meaning passengers transferring from transcontinental expresses to either the east or the west of the city needed an on-demand chauffeur-driven service to convey themselves in their luggage this combined with the city itself hosting numerous lavish hotels and department stores as well as a thriving central business district meant cab companies were soon cropping up by the dozen although without any formal regulation of taxi operators corruption among the firms was rampant so as to win favor with lucrative customers as their preferred taxi company including the bribery of major corporations such as hotels businesses and even some of the railroad companies in order to allow them exclusive rights to transport patrons to and from their locations what resulted was a desperate scramble to cut costs and increase fares as much as possible in order to claim domination of the taxi market which in combination with a stagnating working class as prohibition limited their legal downtime pleasures meant most cab operators and drivers were either fast buck alcoholics struggling to make ends meet or criminal elements associated with syndicates such as the sicilian mafia or the irish mob in order to add to their own unscrupulous profits or as part of money laundering schemes while the cars that taxi drivers used despite the availability of brand new factory fresh models dedicated for taxi work were often second-hand machines either driven to the edge of mechanical life expiry rebuilt wrecks and write-offs hastily thrown together using spare parts military surplus vehicles such as ex-army staff cars and even family sedans stolen off people's driveways the fruits of these highly dubious practices would drive a shifts of up to and over 20 hours per day for fares competitively priced to the point of becoming unprofitable which only served to root out the weaker cap companies meaning that by 1920 the chicago cab scene was dominated by two major players the chicago yellow cab company which had been established in 1910 by john hurts who would later go on to form the hertz car rental agency and check a taxi which had been founded by businessman george hilske and operated both in chicago and new york the status quo however was about to change thanks to a man named maurice markin a russian jewish tailor from smolensk near the belarusian border who had emigrated to the united states in 1913 when he was still in his late teens working in the garment district and running his own ready-to-wear suit business before providing army uniforms for the war effort during world war one but eventually saw an opportunity to expand beyond the garment industry when he noted that the main suppliers of cars for the checker taxi company commonwealth motors of joliet illinois and its car body supplier were teetering on bankruptcy in 1920 using a bank loan of fifteen thousand dollars or two hundred fifty three thousand dollars in 2022 markin bought out car body supplier abe lomberg and renamed his firm to the markin automobile body company but due to both this firm and commonwealth being supported solely by the orders from checker taxi profits remained elusive and they remained on the edge of financial collapse markin's only recourse being to acquire commonwealth motors through a stock swap and merging it with his own mark in automobile company to create a new firm which paid homage to its largest contractual customer being christened the checker cab manufacturing company with markin's vision being to create a superbly rugged reliable and easy to maintain machine the initial checker models were big beautiful cars with well-appointed interiors as at the time traveling by taxicab was a luxury reserved only for the rich while the working and middle classes had to settle with buses trams or the subway the dependability of checker models making them extremely popular with taxi operators across the usa and by the end of the decade accounted for nearly half the cabs in new york city however while markin's new checker company had seen success the corruption endemic to the cab industry was still very much in evidence a 1931 study of 23 000 motor vehicle accidents in new york city for that year concluding that 21 000 of them involved taxi cabs due primarily to what was known as the taxi wars where as the margins for new customer markets tightened individual cab companies became increasingly desperate to secure control of the city streets over their rivals often leading to violence between individual taxi drivers that regularly saw brawls erupt in broad daylight with weapons including fists rocks clubs firearms and sometimes even the taxi cabs themselves and on more than one occasion led to the murder of taxi drivers as they were deliberately run over by their adversaries with marking himself even coming under attack when his house together with the checker manufacturing facility at the former commonwealth factory in joliet were firebombed by rival cab operators prompting his relocation of the czecho firm to kalamazoo michigan in 1924 the battleground for the taxi wars wasn't just restricted to the streets as even at a corporate level underhanded attempts at gaining control of the major taxi firms and car builders were instigated one example taking place in 1928 when through a series of shrewd stock manipulations morris markin himself was removed from the position of president at checker and replaced by a syndicate of auto executives and major stockholders mark in responding by not only battling for control of his own firm but for a control of taxi companies and major metropolitan fleet companies through the creation of the national transportation company roughly modeled after a similar endeavor initiated several years prior by john hurts in an effort to create a market for his yellow cab taxis and by the beginning of 1929 marking controlled more than 1 000 taxis in new york city and acquired partial ownership of the chicago yellow cab company through the outright purchase of the palmerley transportation company which had purchased a percentage of hertz company several years prior with the purchase of palmer lee this also brought under his influence other yellow cab companies across the united states including the yellow cab company of pittsburgh and the yellow taxi company of minneapolis while the linchpin of markin's campaign was the chicago yellow cab company which also took the role of a holding company with its own insurance firm and large maintenance facility the combined assets of these many firms allowing him a solid dominance of the taxi business in several major metropolitan areas mark in turning his full attention toward regaining control of checker which was under the management of company director e l cord who also had ownership of the auburn court duesenberg firm and was a primary stockholder in the lycoming engine company his management resulting in a complex amalgamation of operations including the transferring of manufacture for the safety cab a commercial line of the auburn division to checker while lycoming power units for cord duesenberg and auburn would be introduced on checker models although sales for the safety cab were marketed through auburn but sold to cab firms via the market controlled palmerley transportation company taxi division in cleveland for having so much influence over so many different companies within the same market this brought cord and mark into the attention of the securities and exchange commission who through a bill of complaint charged them with stock manipulation on august 7th 1937 court having been listed as chairman of the board a director and a member of the executive committee of the cord corporation a chairman of the board and director of the checker cab manufacturing company and director of the auburn company while markin was listed as president of the checker cab manufacturing company and its major stockholder the complaint bill also noting that checker cab manufacturing controlled a syndicate that included the palmer lee transportation company the subsidiary to which and through auburn sold safety caps powered by lycoming engines another cord controlled company and the major contractor that supplied baggage delivery from railroad stations to hotels in numerous cities and chicago yellow cab incorporated chicago yellow cab was also a warrant of interlocking enterprises being the largest manufacturer of taxi equipment such as meters which was once again controlled by cord and sold through a division of chicago yellow cab while its finance division allowed operators and franchise companies to purchase safety cabs or checkers on an installment plan and provide a specialty insurance company for taxi fleet owners or operators as well as being the only authorized repair facility in chicago for checker-built vehicles both cord and mark in being indicted but ultimately acquitted on insufficient evidence or while the cord empire collapsed and thus forced el cord himself to liquidate a wide array of holdings including his share of checker after nearly a decade since he had been ousted as company president markin promptly reacquired checker to become controller of the largest manufacturer of vehicles built specifically for the taxi application and dominated the taxi fleet in several major cities and the sale of taxi equipment while on march first of the same year in the face of the continued taxi wars which had erupted sporadically throughout the 1920s and 30s many city councils in the united states introduced limits on the number of hack licenses that could be allowed for the operation of taxi cabs perhaps the most notable being the ruling of the board of aldermen in the city of new york a forerunner to the modern city council which limited the number of licenses through the issuing of medallions thereby making it legal for taxis to transport passengers who held them on the street so long as they paid a 10 renewal fee or 197 dollars in 2022 come 1940 checker was one of the largest car companies in the united states and by far the biggest supplier of taxi cab models although production of civilian models came to a sudden halt in 1941 following america's entry into world war ii chequers assembly facilities being retooled to provide truck components and other equipment for the military but once the war had concluded in 1945 cap production resumed albeit using pre-war models as steel rations and a lack of ability to develop new cars during the height of the conflict meaning a replacement taxi tailored for the market of the late 1940s couldn't be delivered immediately the first post-war checker cab being the model a2 of 1947 which took the underpinnings and chassis of the pre-war model a and fitted it with a contemporary body eventually though in 1956 checker was able to pull its resources and create a dedicated brand new model that replaced the pre-war underpinnings of the a2 and a4 the resultant a8 being a highly practical machine that while externally reflecting the crisp beautiful lines of contemporary saloon cars was internally geared to the changing fashions of a more accessible society where taxi cabs were no longer the chauffeur driven regal carriages of the rich but instead could be hailed by anyone and everyone who could pay the fare regardless of their class the austere and functional nature of the a8 reflected in its hard fiberboard ceilings which replaced the previous fabric headliners a seamless unpleated rear bench in place of cushioned seats that removed any potential dust traps and rubber floor mats which replaced rugs and carpeting allowing drivers to spray down any messes with a hose perhaps the most endearing trait of the a8 was its incredible interior space presenting 46.3 inches of legroom for those seated on the bench enough to accommodate a baby's pram while two folding jump seats were also provided which pushed the car's passenger capacity to six three on the bench two on the jump seats and one in the passenger seat next to the driver all of whom thanks to the car's incredibly generous headroom could travel without the need to remove their hats cargo space for the a8 being able to accommodate all manner of luggage ranging from traditional steamer trunks and large boxes to more modern suitcases and briefcases ideal for runs to and from the airport in addition to the a8 checker from 1947 also provided its cab models for private customers on demand as regular family saloons starting initially with the a3 and continuing through to the a8 before eventually choosing to widen its place in the consumer auto market by way of its first dedicated family car called the cheka a10 superba of 1959 which was sold initially via the company's dealer network in the northeast united states the superba being an evolution of the previous a8 and was available in either a four-door sedan or a five-door station wagon configuration while styling cues were taken from a 1958 facelift of the a8 dub the a-9 which included quad headlamps an egg crate grille and a simplified chrome bumper design the superba however would prove to be the basis of the company's most famous creation the cheka a11 marathon of september 1960 which generally remained faithful to the underpinnings of the superba but had an improved interior the marathon thanks to its spacious cabin and easily replaced bolt-on rear quarter panels making it an incredibly practical and easy machine to operate power coming from an 80 horsepower continental l-head inline-six engine producing a naught-to-sixty time of 15 seconds and a top speed of 89 miles an hour not exactly the fastest but perfectly suited for its role working the densely trafficked streets of midtown manhattan while fuel consumption stood at 13 miles per gallon which was generally typical of the average american saloon car at the time alongside the a11 taxi cab a regular passenger car was also made available known as the a12 and replaced the superba as checkers main private customer model the car once again being provided as either a four-door sedan or a five-door station wagon although due to checkers very limited dealer influence in the regular passenger car market few potential customers were aware that a non-taxi version of the marathon was on sale while also presenting the sometimes embarrassing situation of people accidentally getting into a stranger's car believing that their marathon was a legitimate taxicab and thus for the first year against 7080 chequers being built only 1080 of them were a12 sedans czecho marathons went on sale at 2542 or 23 800 in 2022 though options and variants could see their price rise rapidly including the a12e town customer long wheelbase sedan which went on sale at 3984 dollars and the top of the range a12 town limousine which could carry eight passengers and had an msrp of 4625 dollars or forty three thousand four hundred dollars in 2022 although by far the most outlandish variant of the marathon was the 22 foot long aero bus of 1962 a seven to nine door airport transfer vehicle which was used in place of regular buses to provide a more nimble means of connecting the airport terminal with downtown and holds the record as the longest mass production car in the world the aerobus priding itself on a mixture of passenger capacity and copious amounts of luggage space thanks to its station wagon based rear quarters powered by a 190 horsepower 5.2 litre chrysler v8 engine the aero bus was an incredibly popular alternative for ground transfer operators who preferred not to use lumbering coaches when accessing the narrow streets of the city with 3568 examples being constructed overall although attempts to modify the breed beyond its original nine passenger configuration struggled to find success the a15 of 1977 a 15 passenger variant of the car ultimately failing as the added passenger accommodation robbed it of all cargo capacity in the rear while attempts to create a version specialized for use as a prison transport known as the convoy never entered mainstream use the limitations of the aerobus design ultimately seeing its discontinuation during the same year with the regular a11 though the car illustrated a flexibility that kept it at the top of the taxi cab market through the 1970s and into the 1980s its versatile design also allowing it to take on the role of ambulances hearses utility vehicles and even police cars with the kalamazoo county sheriff's office and the kalamazoo township police department operating a contingent of several checker marathons for use as squad cars while due to it maintaining the classical 1950s styling of the original a deliberate choice in order to help distinguish the model from taxis based on regular production cars it also found a place in movies that were set behind the iron curtain the marathon having a passing resemblance to the gaz 13 chaika a luxury car used by high-ranking politicians and party members in the soviet union it was in new york though where the ubiquitous checker cab made a name for itself among its slew of rivals as while other taxi cab models did exist during the 1970s including the dodge polara the dodge coronet the chevy caprice and even the unusual peugeot 505 the marathon remained firmly on top although the period in which the checker cab reached the height of its fame was among the darkest periods in the city's history as after years of mismanagement and a long outdated infrastructure the financially bereft city of new york by the middle of the decade was on the brink of bankruptcy with a federal bailout for 150 million dollars from the american government being blocked by president gerald ford in october 1975. as the city's fiscal situation stagnated so too did its culture and social fabric the streets of new york becoming dirty run down and dangerous as an overwhelmed corrupt and underfunded police force struggled to stay on top of the rampant crime wave with drugs muggings prostitution strip joints and adult theaters extortion gang violence and high-profile heists orchestrated by the sicilian mafia leaving a black mark on the city's name cabbies during this period being especially prone to violence as even though widespread bullet-resistant taxi partitions had been introduced from 1967 seven cab drivers were killed and three 000 were robbed in the first nine months of 1970 a figure that would increase exponentially throughout the course of the decade at the same time the quality of cab drivers was once again falling back to the desperate times of the taxi wards in the 1920s and 30s with there being a severe shortage of experienced cabbies and as many as one-fifth of the taxi cabs being in the garage at any given time due to poor maintenance or accident damage the proficiency test for a cab driver being negligible at best as applicants only needed to prove they could understand english demonstrate knowledge of 29 major corridors and 168 routes to popular landmarks and be able to point out the locations of 10 to 15 landmarks while on the go although this meant that many taxi drivers knew very little of the road network outside manhattan island with cabbies known to either accidentally or deliberately get lost while traversing the bronx or brooklyn the result being 40 000 new licenses being issued in 1975 of which only a third were re-applications by experienced drivers who had a comprehensive knowledge of the street system across the new york area at the center of it all was the checker marathon its place in this unhappy chapter of new york history exemplified to great effect in the 1976 martin scorsese classic taxi driver which focuses on travis bickle played by robert de niro a misanthropic mentally unstable vietnam war veteran who seeks to exact the punishment of his own moral code on the injustices of the corrupt uncaring and decadent world of 1970s new york or while paying his way by driving the streets of the city in a 1975 checker a11 marathon the film being nominated for four academy awards and propelling up-and-coming actors such as jodie foster to stardom the checker cab's image problem as the face of a crumbling new york was made worse following the 1973 oil crisis as with a spike in petrol costs from 36 cents a gallon to 1.27 a gallon or 5.27 in 2022 the car's 13 mile per gallon fuel consumption suddenly became deeply unattractive while the wider impacts of the crisis on the big three detroit automakers who saw their domestic market domination crumble in the face of higher efficiency metal from europe and japan meant that as these firms re-engineered their models to compete on fuel consumption there was no guarantee that parts for the checker cab would be available in the future as the marathon utilized mechanical components including engines transmissions and brakes that were sourced from ford chrysler and general motors furthermore as the big three desperately tried to downsize their models in the face of a rapidly increasing foreign crop the car makers attempted to fill the hole left in their sails by way of offering special fleet prices to customers who bought cars in volume with taxi firms as well as police departments utility companies and government agencies lapping up the cheap new metal that was being output by detroit at a far greater production rate than what the small checker plant at kalamazoo could manage while also presenting designs that didn't have their roots dating back to the mid-1950s entering the 1980s the czech company was hemorrhaging money and as a result a new model more suited to the modern taxi market could not be developed to replace the 20 year old marathon while following the death of morris market in 1970 his son david had run the company as a major shareholder until 1976 before selling his half of the firm to former gm president ed cole for six million dollars who became checkers ceo while cole had been known for his close association with several duds in the chevrolet back catalogue including the stylish but infamously poor handling corvair of the 1960s and the incredibly unreliable vegas subcompact of the 1970s he had many ambitious though somewhat uninspired ideas as to how he could improve the czech company's product range including a proposal to take unfinished volkswagen rabbits raise their roofs several inches and stretched them until they could accommodate six passengers this proposal also being potentially applied to the chevy citation though all of these plans ultimately came to naught following cole's death on may 2nd 1977 when he was killed at the controls of his twin-engine beagle b-206 series 2 aircraft while flying near kalamazoo during inclement weather with sales continuing to plummet upon entry into the new decade in 1981 the company hit its lowest ever sales of only 500 cars sold during that fiscal year making it the first loss-making year for the company since the great depression and thus with no money left to create a viable replacement for the marathon checker announced it would cease car production the last examples being a blue a12 sedan with a white roof and a marathon taxicab painted in lime green and white which were released from the kalamazoo factory on july 12 1982 the latter being donated to the gilmore museum in hickory corners michigan as for checker motors itself this continued on for nearly 30 more years as a manufacturer of parts for general motors making body stamping for various chevy truck lines and chassis components for cadillacs although with the onset of the 2008 global economic recession gm sales quotas collapsed and the american giant faced bankruptcy being forced to cut production and abandoned many of its weak of firms such as saturn pontiac and hummer while by extension checker saw a crippling loss of its own due to the downturn in its demand as a subcontractor to gm david markin who could have kept the company financially afloat with his own 106 million dollar fortune having lost half of all his assets during a messy divorce settlement from his wife in 2005 and the loss of his remaining wealth to the infamous bernard l madoff investment securities company which ostensibly provided wealth management as one of its corporate functions but was in fact a front for an elaborate multi-billion dollar ponzi scheme in the wake of madoff's arrest in december 2008 having been the mastermind of the largest ponzi scheme in history the czech company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on january 16 2009 and after six months of legal wrangling in the u.s bankruptcy court checker was sold on june 9 to the subsidiaries of two canadian automotive suppliers nomco group llc and van rob inc namco purchasing checkers stamped metal and welded assemblies assets for 650 000 while van rob bought the company's manufacturing equipment for 950 000 the 87 year old company ceasing to exist from january 14 2010 once the former kalamazoo headquarters had been sold off and the 72 acre site leveled for real estate development as for the czech marathons as taxi cabs despite the end of production in 1982 the cars remained an integral part of the new york street scene throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s although as expected the life of a taxi cab was an incredibly hard one for these machines with the average working lifespan of a new york cabbie being at most six to eight years and thus by the turn of the new decade last of the line checkers were facing the end of their useful lives as a frontline piece of public transport especially as domestic and foreign car manufacturers could easily provide taxi versions of their regular family saloons without having to make comprehensive modifications to the design to meet the needs of taxi work examples being the popular ford crown victoria and the ever-present chevy caprice in 1996 the new york city council in order to improve the efficiency and safety of public service vehicles enacted an ordinance that required livery vehicles to be replaced after six years of service this legislation spelling doom for the remaining checker marathons that continued to roam the streets of the tri-state area in ever decreasing numbers most drivers who had become so attached to their checkers opting to quit the taxi business altogether rather than replace their beloved marathons with crown victorias or caprices life expired checker cabs being immediately shipped off to the scrapyard as they had been worn down to the point that they were beyond saving mechanically and had no resale value on july 26 1999 the very last registered checker marathon in new york made its final journeys across the city when after failing a safety inspection earl johnson and his 1978 checker a11 marathon named janie decided to quit the taxi business after 31 years like so many others had before him rather than replacing his cherished checker with an updated model janie having carried throughout her long and distinguished career such celebrities as boxer muhammad ali former first lady and wife of president john f kennedy jacqueline onassis and journalist walter cronkite who famously broke the news of kennedy's assassination in dallas on november 22 1963. janey eventually being sold at auction in december 1999 for 134 500 15 times what johnson had originally paid for her in 1978. today the new york and indeed the american taxi cab seen as a whole is one that is filled by all manner of regular production cars ranging from suvs to regular saloons and estate cars to hybrids and fully electric vehicles although one distinct feature that remains on all these various machines is the yellow checkered livery of their forebears the most iconic of which is the noble marathon as despite a majority of them having been worked to death during their arduous service careers leaving only 700 of the tens of thousands of examples built left in existence these machines remain enshrined in the history of new york's public transport scene and indeed its culture rumbling through the stygian gloom of many a late night and early morning with quite efficiency and sturdy robustness truly the unsung hero of the big apples yesteryear you

Channel: Ruairidh MacVeigh

Views: 152,020

Keywords: car, cars, automobile, auto, bus, truck, motor, motor vehicle, saloon, estate, compact, sports, roadster, transport, road, heritage, historic, New York, New York City, Checker Cab, Checker Motors, Checker Taxi, Taxi, Taxicab, Cab, Taxi Driver, Robert de Niro, 1970s, Crime, Violence, Great Depression, Morris Markin, General Motors, USA, America, United States, Chicago, Yellow Cab Company, John Hertz, American, Ford Crown Victoria, Kalamazoo, Michigan, Illinois, Joliet, Chevy Caprice, Movie, Film, Taxis, Murder

Id: WrqL1qI-vYI

Length: 27min 51sec (1671 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 13 2022