The New York cabbie who was drummed out of driving for a living after rowdies trashed his cab following a Knicks win in the NBA Finals is getting a lift from boosters that include a rap superstar and a Canadian influencer.
After being yanked out by his neck and punched at the corner of 36th Street and Seventh Avenue, Noureddine Bitat watched helplessly as a mob smashed the leased taxi’s windshield and hood after the Knicks’s stunning 29-point Game Four comeback against the San Antonio Spurs.
The 59-year-old Algerian told The City Reporter exclusively that he was so scarred by the Wednesday night encounter that he is “thinking of quitting” after just two years as a cabbie.
“I have bills to pay,” he said. “I’m wondering how I am going to make it.”
But Bitat has new high-profile supporters in his corner, as the New York Taxi Workers Alliance said Monday it is teaming with Bronx rapper French Montana and Canadian TikTok star Zachery Dereniowski to help Bitat financially while he remains out of work.
“I am so overwhelmed by the care of people,” Bitat said Monday in Arabic through a translator. “I’m very thankful.”
Bitat became a symbol of the chaos that followed Game Four, when the NYPD took 56 people into custody for shattering windshields on police vehicles, setting off fireworks in crowds, flinging bottles and shutting down streets to traffic.
The leased 2026 Toyota Sienna had its windshield shattered, its hood and roof stomped on and its meter ripped out after Bitat was forced out of the taxi by a crowd that at one point tried to overturn the vehicle. He was later treated at a hospital to check for injuries.
Bitat had been driving home to Queens when he and the vehicle became tangled in the post-game chaos that broke out on the blocks just north of Madison Square Garden. He said that he, at one point, feared the cab would be torched.
Montana shared a video to social media late Sunday that shows Bitat dejectedly standing on the street as crowds celebrate on the roof of the wheelchair-accessible taxi.
“Somebody find him for me so we can help him get back on his feet,” Montana posted to X very early Monday morning.
The Moroccan-born rapper, who was raised in The Bronx, has been honored repeatedly for helping to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for humanitarian causes in Africa and around the world. The City Reporter helped connect him with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.
“It’s amazing,” said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the alliance. “That’s a real New Yorker.”
Bitat said he is not familiar with Montana’s work.
“It’s not my type of music,” he said with a laugh. “But I’m going to start loving it.”
Zachery Dereniowski — who gained online fame as a Canadian med school student under the handle “MD Motivator” — also joined the efforts to help Bitat. He has 27.5 million TikTok followers, with another 9 million on Instagram.
“Internet, meet Noureddine,” he wrote in a GoFundMe pitch that recounts how Bitat’s livelihood was put at risk by the attack on his taxi. The campaign aims to raise $100,000.
The mayhem that followed Wednesday’s Game Four win preceded the outbursts that erupted Saturday after the Knicks won the team’s first NBA championship in more than 50 years, when five World Cup shuttle buses were torched on 42nd Street and more than a dozen MTA buses were vandalized.
Bitat said his back is still sore from being roughed up and that he is not thinking of getting behind the wheel again. He said he is planning to go to an eye doctor this week to replace glasses that were broken during the commotion in the cab.
Desai said the taxi workers union can steer Bitat in another direction if he decides to stay away from driving a cab.
“Our goal is to really help Mr. Bitat have a different choice in his life and really heal from his trauma,” she said.
Bitat said he is grateful for those who helped him, from his new boldfaced name supporters to unknown women who checked on him as the taxi was being vandalized. He also received a full week’s worth of pay for last week and this week from Signal Taxi, where he leased the Toyota.
And he received a call from Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Sunday.
“The most meaningful gesture has been a show of care,” Bitat said through a translator. “The fact that they are praying for me and caring for me is what has meant the world to me.”
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