David Meyer, in a cab of his own, tried for a similar view — but instead found himself surrounded by revelers, who lifted the old Dodge off the ground, Meyer still in it, while chanting: “Taxi! Taxi! Taxi!”
This was one of many stories shared between the best friends and former cabdrivers one evening last fall, after Meyer, 67, had helped Padberg, 75, move into a rehabilitation facility for older people.
A series of falls and surgeries had left Padberg — a former soldier and aspiring actor who moved to New York in 1969 with nothing but a suitcase and a 1958 Buick convertible — weak and incapable of performing most daily tasks. Meyer made it his mission to help his friend recover.
New York is a hard city to grow old in.
It’s even harder for those who spent their careers in low-wage professions, with meager benefits and scant opportunities for saving. For drivers lacking health insurance, medical complications can take them out of the game entirely.
This is what happened to Padberg, who today cuts a slight figure but nevertheless retains a witty composure. The native Oklahoman has a wiry beard and speaks with a gentle rasp.
Meyer, originally from Ohio, stands a head taller than his friend. A natural performer, he loves telling stories, so much that his tales tend to swerve and smack into each other.
The men belonged to a generation of drivers who moved to New York to become painters, poets, actors and musicians in the 1960s and ‘70s. As flop-haired liberals, they stood in sharp contrast to the veteran cabbies of the ‘50s and ‘60s, then famous for their folksy wisdom. “We had this sense we were on the edge of history,” Meyer said.
After all, the taxicab was an indelible icon of New York then, embodying both the sizzling energy and stark loneliness of the city. Meyer and Padberg were the guys behind the wheel when “Taxi” was a wildly popular sitcom in living rooms across the country. They were the guys, too, who might have been eyed with apprehension after Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” had screened in movie theaters.
Padberg moved here first. After graduating from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in French, he enlisted for a short stint in the Army, which he spent in Nuremberg, Germany. When he got home, he sought acting work at a theater in Oklahoma City, but all roles had been filled for the coming season.
With nothing to lose, he figured, Padberg moved to New York. It was the summer of ’69. In June, police had raided the Stonewall Inn, leading to riots that galvanized the city’s gay community. To many, the city felt like a powder keg ready to blow. But to Padberg, then 26, it was everything he’d ever wanted.
He went to plays. He stayed out too late. And for the first time in his life, he dated men.
In 1971, he found a one-bedroom walk-up in a renovated brownstone on West 83rd Street — the very same apartment he’s called home ever since.
Padberg worked odd jobs and auditioned for roles, but in 1974 he decided it was time to find steady work. “Everyone I knew either waited tables or drove a cab,” he said. “I picked the cab.”
At the same time Padberg started driving, Meyer, a senior at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, had gotten himself arrested for streaking. Barely allowed to graduate, he too had tried his hand at acting in Cleveland and Stamford, Connecticut, before finding his way to New York and becoming a cabdriver.
The friends met in 1980 at a taxi garage on West 55th Street. As Padberg put it, the men “started talking and never stopped.”
Padberg also became close with Meyer’s girlfriend and future wife, Cynthia Berry Meyer. When Meyer was out at night prowling for night fares, they would sometimes hang out together and watch popular TV shows, like “Dallas.”
Berry Meyer recalls Padberg as a handsome man, always dressed impeccably — the type of guy, she said, who liked to get caught up in the “swirling vortex” of New York. She remembers a younger Jack Padberg ambling down Central Park West at night, while singing Judy Garland: “I happen to like New York; I happen to like this town.”
It’s this love for the city that so tightly bound Padberg and her husband, Berry Meyer said.
It was Meyer whom Padberg first called last summer when his health took a turn for the worse. After Padberg underwent emergency surgery, Meyer immediately flew to New York from Bermuda, where Berry Meyer’s career had taken the couple in 2011.
Sleeping on the couch in Padberg’s apartment — cluttered with decades’ of accumulated books and records — Meyer arranged for caregivers to help Padberg before returning to Bermuda. But then Padberg developed new health issues, including a severe loss of appetite and energy. Then he started falling.
Meyer flew to New York again.
One morning, when Meyer was out, Padberg found himself alone and immobile, wedged between his bed and a radiator. Firefighters had to break into his apartment to get him off the ground.
In the hospital, doctors discovered that an infection from the surgery had spread throughout Padberg’s core.
After weeks more of convalescence, nurses thought it would be best for Padberg to move into assisted living. Meyer knew this would result in his friend losing his rent-stabilized apartment of 40-plus years. He intervened, selecting a rehab facility, instead, for Padberg.
“I just want to give Jack a chance to get back to the life and apartment he loves,” Meyer said. “Jack gave me access to the city I knew back then. It still exists there in his apartment.”
Back in Bermuda, Meyer stayed in constant contact with his friend and with the staff of the rehab facility. More than once, he scrambled, from abroad, to delay Padberg’s discharge, scheduled by one staff member when others had told him Padberg could still barely walk.
If he was still weak, Meyer said, how did Padberg have any chance of climbing the 28 steps leading to his apartment?
On one visit last January, Meyer and Padberg took a yellow cab to the apartment to practice on the stairs. During the ride, Meyer told the driver that the two men were once cabdrivers themselves and proceeded to regale him with tales of their glory days. The driver didn’t seem to care.
Throughout the apartment, there were Post-its written by Meyer from over a year ago:
“Drink water every hour.”
“Exercise every day. Stairs, too.”
“Every day, a little stronger.”
While Padberg rested in a chair, Meyer paced the living room making frantic calls. The rehab facility had somehow gotten the impression Padberg had left for good. Meyer assured them his friend would return that evening. There was always another fire, it seemed.
“What I want to know is, what happens to the guy who doesn’t have a friend?” Meyer said.
Berry Meyer, at home alone in Bermuda, began to worry that her husband’s judgment was clouded by nostalgia. Padberg’s apartment had been a fixture of Meyer’s experience in New York for decades; now it was a veritable oasis; a comforting time capsule in an Uber-filled city.
As Meyer said himself one day, delirious after hours of running errands in the city for his friend: “What I’m doing, I’m trying to save Jack. I’m trying to save New York.”
Padberg was finally discharged from rehab last summer. He was still wobbly, but he agreed to use a cane when a nurse told him it looked handsome. “Oh, well, I’ll use it, but only because you want me to,” Padberg told her.
Of course, Meyer was there. He ensured his friend’s paperwork was squared away and accompanied him to the apartment. When they arrived, a neighbor complimented Padberg on his weight loss.
“Yes, I lost nearly 70 pounds,” Padberg said. “But I wouldn’t recommend to anyone to do it the way I did.”
Padberg’s health is still uncertain, but day-to-day life is now as it should be for an older New Yorker. He cooks his own recipes. He reads old books and magazines. Padberg also goes to physical therapy twice a week and volunteers at a neighborhood food bank. He has fallen several times, but he stubbornly rejects Meyer’s estimation of how often.
Last week, Padberg and Meyer returned to the rehab facility — but this time to sing carols for the residents. In a red scarf and reindeer sweater, Padberg gave his full-throated best to “Joy to the World,” “Silent Night” and his favorite, “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.”
The carolers toured the floors and even visited individual rooms. Padberg declined, however, to stop by the room he had occupied for so long. “I think I know what it looks like,” he said.
As Padberg continues his recovery, he is taking more walks around his neighborhood. On one-way streets, he walks against traffic, he said, allowing him to see the city as he never did when he was a driver.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.