UPPER WEST SIDE — The cabbies who parked illegally so they could attend prayers at an Upper West Side mosque stuck to the right side of the law on Friday — a relief to locals who said the pious taxi drivers were creating a traffic hazard.
For years, dozens of cabbies have double- and even triple-parked during Friday services at the Islamic Cultural Center on Riverside Drive and West 72nd Street. When the nearby intersection of West 72nd Street and Riverside Boulevard recently reopened to traffic after a four-year closure, the illegally-parked cabs forced some drivers into a lane of oncoming traffic.
That sparked complaints from residents and property managers at the nearby Trump high-rises along Riverside Boulevard. Police handed out tickets, and mosque officials asked worshippers to follow the city's traffic laws as closely as the follow Muslim religious law, which requires practicing Muslims to attend Friday prayers.
The devout cabbies seem to have gotten the message. During Friday's service, usually the most heavily attended, with up to 300 worshipers, the usual sea of yellow cabs was gone, and no cabs were spotted parking illegally.
Instead, a line of legally parked cabs stretched down the west side of Riverside Drive as far north as West 76th Street.
"We, as Muslims, have to follow rules, that's our duty," said cab driver Tahir Sani, 59, after he was finished praying on Friday. He said imams at the mosque asked worshipers to obey parking laws, and that services were nearly empty on Friday because legal parking was so scarce.
Sani, a Ghanaian immigrant who lives in Harlem, said he sometimes shows up an hour early so he can snag a parking spot. "If you're going to park, don't do it in a way that interrupts other people's business," Sani said.
Friday's cab-free streets pleased Jim Littlefield, a security director at the Trump Corporation who said the sea of yellow taxis posed a safety threat to local residents.
Littlefield visited the intersection on Friday and said he didn't see any double-parked taxis.
"It's a safety condition," Littlefield said. "I have a concern for the people that live in my employer's building at West 72nd and Riverside Boulevard. We'll have our eye on this going forward."
