Scarsdale’s Central Taxi may soon close
The 100-year-old business is running out of time.
The cars are on the table Central Taxi may go out of business before March.
BY DEBORAH SKOLNIK
Bad things, they say, come in threes. Following the wrenching loss of DeCicco Family Markets and Scarsdale Hardware, residents now face the possible unraveling of yet another stitch in the fabric of life in the ’Dale: Central Taxi. Longtime manager Peter Blier confirmed yesterday that the business may cease operations by month’s end.
Post-COVID work habits, social changes cited
Blier said Central Taxi never regained economic strength following the pandemic. Before COVID, large numbers of commuters headed to or from the Scarsdale Metro North station, often needing rides. The emergence of hybrid work has changed that, he said. “The world has not really reverted here in Scarsdale to its pre-COVID patterns, which involved a lot more commuting and a lot more group ridership. And while we've done lots of things—we do airports, we do doctor's appointments, we do kids visiting this place and that place—the commuter railroad calls were the bread and butter of the business, and they're a shadow of what they once were,” Blier explained.
And then, he continued, Scarsdale Village has been aging and changing. “We've lost DeCicco’s, we've lost Scarsdale Hardware, we lost the CVS, we lost Lange's Deli. Going back a little further, we lost Vaccaro Shoe Repair. I don't want to say it's inevitable that we join them, but since we were part of the same infrastructure that they were supporting, it wouldn't be shocking either.”
A ride at the ready Blier connects a customer with a taxi.
An Uber-oriented population
Of course, there’s also Uber (and to a lesser extent, Lyft) to compete with. While many people have turned to Uber for their needs, “it isn’t the answer for everyone,” Blier stressed. He pointed to their constantly fluctuating prices. “They literally change moment to moment, and your Uber price is a price chosen for you—mine could be different. It’s based on your use profile. If they've seen that historically you are not price sensitive, they may up the price for you. If they see that you are price sensitive, they may lower it. Also, it's location specific. If you're calling from a public place, like the train station here, versus one block away at a house, the chances are they're charging you more from the train station or the public place because the concept is that at the house you have other options and you're comfortable.”
What this means is that the more you need an Uber, the more you’ll be squeezed. A person who needs a ride to the doctor may find the trip reasonably priced, but may feel held for ransom when requesting to be taken home. “I don't know what bad adjective to use, but…” Blier trailed off. [The Insider suggested “predatory.”]
Uber also has surge pricing, which Central Taxi has never espoused. “Imagine if I had forty or fifty people on line here, and I said, ‘Okay, whoever is willing to pay fifteen dollars, come to the front of the line,’” Blier posited. “People would murder me.” Checking his phone, he pointed out that the price for a ride within Scarsdale was nearly twice on Uber than it was for Central Taxi.
A sign of the times Commuter business, once Central Taxi’s mainstay, has waned with the advent of hybrid work schedules.
An increasingly rare business model
Another factor that has exerted financial stress on Central Taxi is the structure of its operations. “The nature of the taxi business, not just in Westchester but everywhere, is that it's really moved to an owner-operator model as opposed to a fleet model,” Blier said. “Virtually every driver you see in White Plains is driving a car that they own or share with somebody.” By contrast, Central Taxi operates as a fleet, “and the fleet insurance that we have has gotten more and more expensive at this point,” Blier said. “It's like twice the cost of what an individual's insurance would be.
“Our owner is way past retirement age, and just doesn't have much energy left for this. And so that’s left a whole bunch of drivers who would like to keep giving service, but they're lacking one major thing, and that is the proper car,” he said. Many of the drivers are longtime employees, Blier added. A number of them have worked for Central Taxi for 30 years, and one man has been with the company for almost 50 years. Meanwhile, the fleet has dwindled. “We’re down to ten cars. Before Covid we had twenty-four,” Blier said.
Hunt for a buyer or other solutions in progress
“What we've been doing for the last many, many months is looking for a buyer for the company and we didn't really find [one]. I mean, we talked to any number of people and somebody is supposed to be coming down to talk to me now, but of all those people, only one whom we spoke to was anticipating a fleet model which would continue the drivers in their current roles,” Blier said. “We're now faced with an enormous bill at the end of the month in order to continue the fleet insurance, and it's questionable whether or not we'll be doing that.”
Could the business transition to a co-op structure? “[Greenburgh Town Supervisor] Paul Feiner is working with us in a big way…[a co-op] is exactly the model that would work best here,” Blier said. “He’s looking for ways where the government would provide financial support to create a co-op.” That would mean either bringing in other people who have cars and insurance, or helping the existing drivers acquire their own vehicles. Central Taxi has also been in touch with Assemblywoman Amy Paulin to request her help. As for what Scarsdale residents can do, Blier said, “I suppose it can’t hurt to reach out to Scarsdale and local government,” although he notes they already have been supportive.
Community connection “We know everybody, and everybody knows us,” said Blier.
A piece of Scarsdale, and possibly national, history
Not only is Central Taxi a fixture in town, but it also may well be the country’s oldest taxi company, Blier said. First established as Central Transport and Taxi Company at the White Plains train station in 1912, it began operating in Hartsdale (which was then larger than Scarsdale) in 1916. As soon as the company also began to do business in Scarsdale, it was regulated by the Scarsdale government. “The first motorized car to be used as a taxi here in Scarsdale was in 1916,” Blier shared.
Central Taxi’s phone number dates back even further, to 1903. A livery firm in Scarsdale, which rented out horses and buggies, was the first to use it. That company eventually sold out to Central Transport and Taxi Company, which assumed the phone number. Today, Central Taxi’s number remains Scarsdale 16: (914) 723-0016. “Our guess is that if you go back to that phone number being in continuous usage for transportation purposes, if it's not the oldest [in the country], it's certainly really old,” Blier said. In the 1960s, the current owner’s family bought the Scarsdale and Hartsdale locations, and the White Plains outpost became separate.
An uncertain future
Central Taxi’s demise would be a loss for many people—not only residents, but also home healthcare workers and nannies. They often do not have credit cards, making them unable to summon an Uber. It would be a loss for Blier as well. Although he is near retirement age and will accept the business’s closure if he must, it will mark the end of his more than 20-year tenure at the company.
“One of the biggest reasons I have always worked here because I am plugged into the community. Life comes and meets you here,” he said. “You see what people are thinking, how things are changing…We are still part of what makes a village a village, as opposed to a shopping mall. If I’m suddenly home and not able to do this anymore, I won’t know who comes and goes in the village. We know everybody, and everybody knows us.”