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Andrew Vollo is a New York City cab driver who has made it his mission to interview as many other cabbies as he can, recording their memories for the StoryCorps oral history project. Recently, Vollo spoke with Oleg Roitman and Jerry Tierstein about their experiences driving passengers around New York.
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Piece Description
Andrew Vollo is a New York City cab driver who has made it his mission to interview as many other cabbies as he can, recording their memories for the StoryCorps oral history project. Recently, Vollo spoke with Oleg Roitman and Jerry Tierstein about their experiences driving passengers around New York.
Broadcast History
NPR's "Morning Edition" - September 26, 2008
Transcript
OR: My name is Oleg Roitman. My nickname is the human computer. If you tell me in Russian, Hebrew, or English any date, for example the date of your birth, in less than a second I will tell you on which day of the week you were born, Monday, Tuesday, etcetera. To prove that my answers are correct, I always carry a book with calendars from 1900 to 2020. For example, two passengers, make and female, got in my cab. They asked me to take them to Penn Station. I began to drive.
The guy, he said, ‘I was born on April 14th, 1973.’
I said, ‘Saturday.’
He said, ‘Oh, yes, yes, yes correct.’
He paid me double the meter.
I am probably the most slow driver on the road. Everybody passes me by. But very often people tell me: 'You are the best cab driver for all my life.' And they ask me very often: 'What do you do behind the wheels with your so-smart head?' Maybe they are right, maybe they ar...
Read the full transcript
Intro and Outro
INTRO:We've heard a lot about Wall Street lately. Now, we're going to take a minute for stories from a different part of New York City's economy.
They come from StoryCorps... where everyday people are interviewing one another.
Andrew Vollo is a New York City cab driver who's made it his mission to interview as many other cabbies as he can. Last Friday we heard one of these conversations.
Today, more voices from behind the wheel.
Here's Vollo interviewing fellow cab-drivers Oleg (OH-leg) Roitman and Jerry Tierstein... (:23)
OUTRO:New York City cab drivers speaking with their fellow-cabbie Andrew Vollo at StoryCorps.
We heard from Gerry Tierstein and Oleg Roitman, the Human Computer. (:08)
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