Villager photo by Lorcan Otway

Taxi’s taken to the cleaner’s

On Friday at 12:30 p.m., a yellow cab driver smashed through a dry cleaner’s storefront at 144 First Ave. between St. Mark’s Pl. and E. Ninth St., after first having plowed through a bus stop, knocking down its sign. Remarkably, no one was hurt. The only person inside the cleaner’s, the owner, was in the store’s rear. It was a mystery why the hack had turned his car at a right angle to the street, then drove east straight across the avenue. The cabbie appeared O.K. He walked out of the store, but a woman passing by who was a doctor advised him to lie down till medical help came. When an ambulance arrived, he was strapped to a backboard and removed to a hospital to be checked for injuries.