They are the faces of hardscrabble characters, workers, kids, ladies of the night.” Together, the pair created this book because, Casalino says, “These are the faces of this city at that time. They are packed in file cabinets, on the walls, in piles.Ĭasalino, who had previously published books in collaboration with and about other photographers on a fascinating self-publishing platform called Blurb, was immediately grabbed by Koss’ taxi cab photos. “That led me to his website and that led me to him.”Ĭasalino visited Koss in his North Side apartment, which is jammed with photos. “I saw some of his photos for sale on eBay, photos of the old market on Maxwell Street,” said Casalino, who has been collecting art and photography for decades. He swallowed his frustration and put his book dreams on hold until last year, when a real estate developer named Perry Casalino came into the picture. And the university presses I approached about a book also gave me a ‘No.’” “But when I later asked him for a favorable quote I could use, he turned me down. “Avedon said he loved the idea,” says Koss. Koss showed him some cab photos and told of his plans for a book of them. Koss attended a conference decades ago at the Art Institute where he encountered the famous photographer Richard Avedon. He shot chillingly intimate photos of drug addicts, and civil rights gatherings, and parades … He shot pictures in San Francisco, where he lived for a while. He was shooting photos at various protests and marches over the years. He took his camera to the chaos surrounding the 1968 Democratic Convention and the more sedate 1996 edition. “It’s intuitive, I suppose, but I love it.” “I did take one photo class but I am basically self-taught,” he says. By then he had been taking photos for some time. Sitting next to him on the front seat of his cab was a Nikon camera of the point-and-shoot variety, which had been a gift from his father. I tended bar for a while at a place near the Checker garage.” I had a bunch of different kinds of jobs. “I spent a lot of years in college,” he says. Koss graduated from Kelly High School and then entered Northeastern Illinois University majoring in history with the intention of becoming a teacher. He grew up with a sister on the Southwest Side of the city and his father was a manager for Sears. It was a real job and you could make a good living. “There was a freedom to it and the people. We never met then but I share his feelings. I know that because I drove a cab too, out of that same garage, starting a few years before Koss and into his time there. And why not? If memory serves, drivers received 42% of whatever clicked on the meter, kept all tips, and the company took care of gas and maintenance. He drove nights and, for him, it was a good job. It was a wild and busy and noisy place, a human beehive.Īllan Lee Koss was in and out of there hundreds, likely thousands, of times. CDL owners, Uber and Lyft drivers DO NOT own a chauffeur license and need not to apply.The Checker taxi garage was a massive place, just to the north of North Avenue and stretching from Wells Street west to North Park Avenue. This is not your driver’s license and it’s not your CDL. Need to own the City of Chicago Livery Chauffeur License or Taxi Driver’s License (Hard Card).
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