Portfolio.com weighs in on TLC commish/Brooklyn Heights resident David Yassky’s dream to have a taxi driver dress code:
Portfolio: “Taxi drivers are ambassadors for the city, often the first person a visitor sees is a taxi driver,” the earnest, fresh-faced bureaucrat and former City Council member told the Associated Press. “We’re just trying to make sure taxi drivers think about the fact they represent the city,” Yassky, 46, explained.
It’s no surprise that the city’s hacks offend Yassky’s delicate sensibilities. It’s doubtful that the Princeton and Yale-educated Yassky—who lives in tony Brooklyn Heights and is married to the CFO of the Metropolitan Opera—has ever been behind the wheel of a cab for a nine-hour shift.
Yassky, a political flameout, found himself unemployed after losing a 2006 Congressional battle and a 2009 bid for the City Comptroller’s job. After that, it only made sense to put him in charge of the TLC.
If the city must impose a dress code on cab drivers, let’s hope that they get it right—a windbreaker, a cap, and an unlit cigar should do just fine.
