To be honest, one of the first things I noticed when I first came to DC for graduate school were the Taxi Cabs. While I rarely used them, the individuality of the cars caught me as something most interesting. Growing up, I always had an interest in color schemes. I had a spotter's guide growing up of all of the then current railroad paint schemes that were painted on different railroad locomotives. One of my most read books as a boy was Marc Okkonen's Baseball Uniforms of the 20th Century which presented the evolution of each team in the majors uniforms from 1898 to 1992. I understood the importance of liveries and color schemes as a form of branding. I had been to New York City and seen the iconic Yellow Cabs. But in DC, it was a different world.
In DC, different companies had different styles. Silver, Gold, and Yellow Cab Companies were pretty self explanatory. Diamond Cab's custom diamond shaped dome light was iconic and set their cabs apart from their competition. I saw oranges, blues, reds, and greens. I jokingly thought that it would be an interesting project to create a spotter's guide for every company in the District.
Now with the uniform paint scheme, companies like Yellow and Silver will see their names not make sense anymore. In three years none of these paint schemes will be on the road anymore. Noting that snapping photos of the cabs on the street wouldn't take much time I decided that, as a historian, it was a duty to document these liveries before they disappear forever from DC's streets. The District has over 200 registered companies...may as well try to catch them all. In short, think of this site as a Spotter's guide, or a game of Pokemon with taxi cabs.
