BusTalk

[Mr. Linsky]

Green Bus Lines, The Early Years

I have often been asked how I know so much about Green Bus Lines (especially the early years).

I consider myself to be a living link to the past merely because I was involved with the company at a time between the middle forties and early sixties when most of the original stockholder/drivers were still working. The many that I became friendly with related stories to me about the ‘old days’, and I have retained most of those memories.

It was long before the official incorporation of the company in 1925 that Green Bus Lines actually had its beginnings as a 'taxi' operation working out of a store front on Houston Street on the lower east side.
The industry in Manhattan was still in its infancy in the late teens (the Checker-Yellow-Hertz-GM alliance had not fully matured yet) and this group of young entrepreneurs (made up mainly of Jewish, Irish and Itlalian immigrants) were basically cab drivers that had no intention of going into the bus business!

With ‘used’ six seat Indianas (and you can picture what anything used was in 1918!) they trundled up and down both Madison and Park Avenues looking for fares, and often being chased and arrested by the police for operating without permits. BTW; the story that they went as far as screwing down seats to truck beds is untrue! (actually, these ‘Indianas’ were the first real S.U.V.’s in their station wagon like configurations).

It was about 1922 that things really began to heat up; the aforementioned ‘Checker’ alliance had taken hold, had become all powerful politically, and declared war on ‘wildcat’ operators. It was not uncommon for their ‘goon’ squads to harass independents to the point of actually cutting them off in the streets!

The stage was set for amalgamation and while city fathers discouraged any organized assault on the taxi industry they did suggest and aid in obtaining the necessary permits to operate buses on cross town routes in the borough. But, as you will see in my next chapter entitled 'Green Bus Lines, a History', this would not be the end of the beginning for the company in Manhattan, but it would be the beginning of the end!

There were a number of non working investors including my father who helped to finance the purchase of nearly fifty new Mack buses for the venture (I still have original stock certificates somewhere in my attic that I’m afraid would now only be good as wallpaper!).

The rest, as they say, is history (or, at least, the Manhattan part of it!).

Mr. Linsky
"The Green Hornet"
Green Bus Lines, Jamaica, New York

[Pipe]

Mr.Linsky nice story about Green Bus Lines. "Pipe"