‘Black Car’ Services Cruise to Popularity as Fringe Benefit

The sleek, black Lincoln Town Car glides through midtown traffic, its rear-seat occupant hidden by tinted windows. Is it a wealthy bond trader? A top criminal lawyer? A celebrity being whisked to a network interview?

More than likely, the car is ferrying a Wall Street secretary, advertising assistant or magazine intern. Six years of dramatic growth have turned the so-called “black-car” services from an exclusive corporate perk to a standard fringe benefit of Manhattan life, even for those on the bottom of the office totem pole. Therein lies a tale of the entrepreneurial ‘80s.

Nearly 12,000 black cars service corporate clients here in what has become a $250-million-a-year business that even boasts its own newspaper. More than 70 companies have sprung up, some of them sporting million-dollar computer systems. Some banks, brokerage houses and law firms have accounts with three or four car services, the better to help harried employees make that plane at LaGuardia or beat the filing deadline at the courthouse.

Obvious Appeal

In a city where subways are crowded and dirty and an empty cab is a rush-hour rarity, the appeal of the chauffeured ride is obvious. An employee simply makes a phone call and is assigned a car number, which helps to identify the driver among double-parked rows of black sedans in limo-locked neighborhoods such as Wall Street.

While service sometimes is spotty, the rider usually steps into a clean, air-conditioned automobile with a polite, well-dressed driver. There is a rear light for nighttime reading. No money changes hands; the passenger simply signs a voucher, and an accounting department pays the bill. Prices average about $24 an hour.

“New York’s crime rate has helped us,” said Alfred deSimone of MinuteMen, a cooperative car service with 447 driver-owners and 6,000 accounts. “A lady’s going home 8 at night. She’s not with anybody. You know the car is going to be there rather than trying to flag a cab in the street.

“It’s an overtime bonus. Companies say to their employees, ‘We want you to work overtime, and we’ll get you home safely.’ ”

Since 1937, the city has capped the number of yellow cab medallions at 11,787, pushing their cost to $140,000. By contrast, drivers who meet minimum standards can buy a MinuteMen two-way radio for $44,000 (some firms charge as much as $70,000), set their own hours and avoid cruising in dangerous neighborhoods. Many Israelis, Pakistanis, Haitians, Colombians and other immigrants have flocked to the business.

‘Nicer Rides’

“You get nicer rides, nicer people, and the money is a little better,” said Larry Zimmerman, a MinuteMen driver from Queens. “There’s also better security, knowing who you’re picking up and where you’re going.”

But the industry’s phenomenal growth has slowed since the 1987 stock-market plunge. Several car services have gone bankrupt or merged with larger firms after flooding the market with franchises that turned out to be worthless. Major clients are demanding and receiving discounts, and state authorities have received hundreds of complaints from drivers who charge they are being exploited.

“It’s a phenomenon of capitalism,” one industry expert said. “They found a market, they captured it and the business grew. Then they began to get greedy.”

Two years ago, the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission began regulating the industry with periodic inspections and a $250-a-year registration fee. Many drivers accuse the taxi panel of petty harassment, and some industry groups have sued in an attempt to free themselves from city regulation.

“I believe in free enterprise,” MinuteMen President Camil Petrescu said. “We are private transportation. We have to have a good relationship with our customers.”

But Richard Naclerio, vice president of Bell Radio car service, called himself “a firm believer” in government regulation. “It gives us credibility,” he said. “You think Salomon Brothers wants to put its women into unregulated cars?”

While two major car services recently declared bankruptcy, others are rushing to fill the gap. National Car Rental recently entered the Manhattan market with the first of 300 new Cadillacs, all with company-employed drivers dispatched by computer signals routed through the firm’s Minneapolis headquarters.

“If we can do it in Manhattan, we can do it any place, like Washington, D.C., for instance, or Chicago,” National spokesman Michael Olson said. He said company President Vincent Wasik launched the venture after being stranded in a New York rainstorm when his old car service showed up an hour late.

Some companies restrict the black-car perk to senior executives with special vouchers; others are more egalitarian. At Shearson Lehman Hutton, anyone including a file clerk can use one of the firm’s five car services to go home after 8 p.m.

‘Real Crunch Time’

“Between 8:30 and 10 is a real crunch time,” spokesman Michael O’Neill said. “You have to wait half an hour, especially if it’s raining.”

Others complain more vociferously. “We’ve had problems with almost all the car services we’ve used,” said attorney Michael Wolfson, whose law firm recently switched to National. “When you first have a relationship with them, they come on like gangbusters. Then as they get busier, service deteriorates. You call and immediately get put on hold, then sit there while they look for a car.”

Wolfson, who takes the car service from the World Trade Center to his Upper East Side home, is undaunted by National’s $42-an-hour rates. “These for the most part are charges that are billed to the client,” he said.